Pete Seeger Caricature

$95.00$495.00

Pete Seeger Caricature, shown here, age 29 in Buffalo, NY in 1948 with his Vega Whyte Laydie long-necked banjo while working for the 1948 presidential campaign of Roosevelt’s former Secretary of Agriculture and Vice President, Henry A. Wallace, who ran as a third-party candidate on the Progressive Party ticket.

Seeger was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead Belly’s “Goodnight, Irene”, which topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950. Members of The Weavers were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era.
In the 1960s, Seeger re-emerged on the public scene as a prominent singer of protest music in support of international disarmament, civil rights, counterculture, and environmental causes.

A prolific songwriter, his best-known songs include “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” (with Joe Hickerson), “If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)” (with Lee Hays of the Weavers), and “Turn! Turn! Turn!”, which have been recorded by many artists both in and outside the folk revival movement and are sung throughout the world.

Seeger was in the U.S. Army in 1942, stationed at Fort Meade, near Washington, D.C. when he was granted a weekend pass to visit New York.
“If I had a longer-necked banjo,” he remembers thinking, “I could play it in B Flat minor and I could reach that.”

It was an idea that was radical and elegant all at once, and Seeger acted on it quickly, dragging his Vega Whyte Laydie down to luthier John D’Angelico’s Lower East Side shop for what amounted to major surgery.

“I got him to saw off the neck,” Seeger says casually, more than 65 years later, “and he inserted a little piece of wood where two frets would be. He glued it together with pegs, I think, to make sure the glue would hold.”

And hold it did, for at least half a dozen years; considering D’Angelico’s legendary skill, probably quite a bit longer. We may never know. Like the punch line to a bad musician’s joke, the instrument was stolen from the backseat of Seeger’s car in 1949, while he ducked into a café to grab a cup of coffee.

“I never saw it again,” he says. “Somewhere in America is a Whyte Laydie with two extra frets.”

Seeger died at New York-Presbyterian Hospital on January 27, 2014, at the age of 94 from natural causes.

 

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Description

All prints are produced using Giclee printing process which is used for archival art reproduction. This process uses fade-resistant archival pigment-based ink which lasts over 100 years. All prints are printed on 310GSM, Luxurious mould-made, 100% cotton rag Archival Certified watercolor paper.

Archival Conservation Mat is included with your purchase. Mat is a high quality, 4 ply (1/16″) surround mat. These frame mats are acid-free & Lignin-free made with 100% virgin alpha-cellulose surface, core and backing papers. So your caricature with mat will fit into a standard comparable frame either “20” x 24″ or “16” x 20″ depending on the print size, (frame not included). Price also includes a Backer Board.

32″ x 40″ stretch canvas print is produced by Giclee printing process and are hand stretched over heavy duty American made white pine. The canvas print is varnished twice after printing. The canvas prints are ready to hang (complete with hanging wire).

Additional information

Weight .25 lbs
Dimensions 16 × 20 × .25 in
Print Size

32" x 40" Stretched Canvas Print $495, 20" x 24" Stretched Canvas Print $330, 11" x 14" Watercolor Print $95, 16" x 20" Watercolor Print $185