Dear Helaine and Joe: I own a painting by Darrell McClure and am curious about its value. The frame is in poor condition, and there is a dedication from the artist on the back to "Mary Lou." The size of the image is 28 1/2 inches wide by 20 5/8 inches tall.
Sincerely.
—A.W., Port St. Lucie, Fla.
Dear A.W.: There is a myth that whenever an accomplished artist dies the value of his or her work skyrockets. The market for art is much more complicated than that, and sometimes the work of even a gifted artist can languish for years before it is "discovered" once again.
Darrell McClure was born in Ukiah, Calif., in 1903. His vocation was cartoonist, his avocation was the sea and sailing. McClure worked for Hearst's King Features, and his first newspaper cartoon, "Vanilla and the Villains," first appeared in 1928.
This was unsuccessful and he followed it with "Hard Hearted Hicky." But it, too, was not particularly well received by the general public. So McClure took over the drawing of the established "Little Annie Roonie" cartoon in 1930. By 1933 he was once again ready to try a strip of his own, this time called "Donnie." But he quickly came back to "Little Annie Roonie."
"Little Annie Roonie," which first appeared in 1927, was really a knock off of "Little Orphan Annie." Instead of a dog named "Sandy," "Little Annie Roonie" had a dog named "Zero" and said "Gloriosky!" instead of "Leapin' Lizards!"
The name "Little Annie Roonie" was familiar to Americans from the 1890s song by the same name and from a silent film, and the cartoon is said to have been the most successful of the "Little Orphan Annie" styled comics. McClure drew this comic until 1966, when both he and the character retired.
As a young man of 17, McClure had taken a voyage from California to Hawaii on the ship "Annie Johnson," and this is said to have begun his love of the sea. From age 19, he worked as a seaman until his friends got him a job as an apprentice cartoonist. He also studied at a cartoon school in San Francisco, and then at the California School of Fine Arts.
The watercolor belonging to A.W. probably was painted in the early 1980s, just a few years before McClure's death in 1987. It is of the Sloop "John B."
Pricing a piece of art is done by doing a "market data comparison," which means that recent prices for similar works by a given artist are reviewed, and this will then allow an appraiser to determine the price for the work of art that is in question.
Unfortunately, we could not find a record of a McClure painting that has been sold in the past decade or so.
The only McClure painting we could find had a football subject and an auction estimate of $300 to $500 — but the piece did not sell. This is distressing, but we do feel that McClure's marine work is more desirable, and based upon the subject matter, size, condition and pleasing quality of the drawing, the current insurance replacement value for this McClure watercolor is probably in the $750 to $1,000 range.
Helaine Fendelman and Joe Rosson are the authors of the "Price It Yourself" (HarperResource, $19.95). Questions can by mailed to them at P.O. Box 12208, Knoxville, TN 37912-0208.