J Wilber Ganterman Gehrig Drawing
 

Hello My Dad picked this up in the late 70's and we have owned it since. As you can see it is inscribed by Eleanor Gehrig. The piece is signed by J Wilber Ganterman of St. Louis and since the quality looks pretty good to me (Although I am Definitely not an art critic) I wondered if anyone here had any other of his drawings. for clarity not for sale just looking for information on the piece. Barry Halper looked at this in the mid 80's and said that the Eleanor Gehrig signature in his opinion was real. Aside from getting Barry's thoughts this is first time I have reached out for info on this piece.

Thanks for looking
Jonathan

Pics
 

Sorry Pics...

I am no expert, but two things seem odd to me....

1. the inscription looks fairly shaky and looks to be slowly drawn, rather than a person's natural handwriting.

2. Eleanor appears to have signed her last name very similar to the way Lou signed his own last name. Maybe Eleanor developed this habit while signing for Lou? I'm not sure...

I will defer to the experts, but I wonder if anyone else would have the same concerns.

One thing's for sure -- the drawing itself is absolutely spectacular!

She would have been 54 in 1958. I would have thought an older person penned that but I don't know anything about her hand writing.

....

Ganterman
 

I have come across a lot of Gonterman's prints, but nothing original. He was good, popular for pencil portraits of famous Americans. He was not great though and has not appreciated in value at all. Many of his works had a "signature" of his subject also that was also well done. I would have no opinion on the Gehrig inscription being real or not, other than stating again much of his work has very close "signatures" of his subjects. You can probably find his stuff on ebay from time to time.

Here is one of his of Thomas Jefferson as an example. (pulled from eBay)

Thank you for info. I know that the Lou Gehrig signature is part of the drawing The signature I had asked Mr. Halper about was the Eleanor Gehrig at that time he was the only collector I knew that owned and had handled autographs of Mrs. Gehrig. This drawing is from a series of famous Americans I wonder if he drew any other baseball players he seems to have captured Lou very well.

Gonterman
 

Yes, Babe Ruth was part of this series also. There are plenty of those that become available.

J Wilber Gonterman not Ganterman
 

Thanks when I noticed the o I searched and found a number of his prints including the Ruth and got the answer I was looking for about who he was and where he stood as an artist and illustrator.