Derham Groves

Ray Johnson’s Letter #1

In 1993, while working on my book Mail Art: The Do-It-Yourself Letterbox From Workshop To Gatepost, I wrote to legendary U.S. artist Ray Johnson, the ‘father’ of mail art, seeking his views about homemade letterboxes. This is his reply, written in watercolour paint:

save0075.jpg

Panda & Graham

save0102.jpg
Autographed fan photographs of Panda Lisner and Graham Kennedy ‘touched up’ by the authograph book’s original owner, Faye Marsden.

Conan Doyle’s Moustache For Sale

save0070.jpg
Dominic Winter Book Auctions, Lot 271: Doyle (Sir Arthur Conan, 1859-1930). Trimmings from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s moustache preserved by his second wife Lady Jean Conan Doyle, c. 1930, the small cluster of hairs centrally window-mounted beneath a facsimile of the handwritten envelope (‘My beloved moustache hairs’) from which the hairs were taken, printed caption beneath and b & w photo. portrait of pipe-smoking Doyle and Sherlock Holmes on either side, together with a similar display of three pieces of silver card confetti (horse shoe, heart and shoe) from the second wedding of Conan Doyle to Jean Blyth Leckie on the 18th September 1907, neatly window mounted with b & w portraits of both parties, a facsimile of the handwritten envelope from which the confetti came and a printed caption beneath, both framed and glazed, approx. 30 x 50 cm (2) £100-150