Rod Laver

Prague: Marcel Niederle, 1963-1970.
. Signed by Illustrator

40.5cm x 29cm. Original drawing, pencil, charcoal and watercolour. Together with 3 original drawings, ink and pencil, 21cm x 15cm to 15cm x 8cm.

Original portrait of Rod Laver in pencil, charcoal and watercolour, signed, by the Czech artist and caricaturist Marcel Niederle (1898-1990), made in 1970, the year after Laver’s second Grand Slam. Offered with three smaller caricatures of Laver by Niederle in ink and pencil, all signed, one showing Laver holding a trophy, and one with ink wash, dated 1963, Laver’s first year as a professional after his first Grand Slam. Niederle specialised in sporting subjects, particularly tennis and ice hockey. After working in New York as an illustrator for Sports Illustrated he returned to Czechoslovakia, where he drew the leading tennis players of the 1950s to the 1970s, a period dominated by Australian champions. No holdings of Niederle’s work can be traced in any Australian public collection.

Minor tanning to top left of paper. Near Fine Condition.

AU$1,200