The Bethel Historical Society (Bethel Conn.) and the Art Young Gallery in conjunction with Bethel publisher Seraphemera Books, proudly announce the publication of the lost for-half-a-century and final unpublished manuscript of the Dean of American Cartoonists Art Young,
Types of the Old Home Town.

The collection of thirty-seven Types and their associated writings, originally began appearing over the course of 1925 - 1926 in The Saturday Evening Post. Over time, Art Young expanded this collection of characters and at the time of his death in 1943, was seeking a publisher for the collection.

For over half of a century, the completed-but-rough manuscript sat in a box in the back of a bookseller s warehouse, until it was unearthed by a collector. Now, for the first time,
Types of the Old Home Town appears in a manner as close as possible to Art Young s original vision. A majority of these drawings have never before been published.

In his own words from the autobiography Art Young - His Life and Times: These Types pictures I regard as my best contributions to folklore Americana. Here was work which I greatly enjoyed, conjuring up from the days of my youth the characters that I had known back home. And I had traveled enough to realize that they were not just local, but that their prototypes were to be found in hundreds or thousands of towns.

For nearly forty years, Bethel Conn. was home and center to Art Young (1866-1943), the acclaimed illustrator whose work was published in magazines as diverse as The Masses, The Saturday Evening Post, Judge, The Nation, The Liberator, The New York Evening Journal, The New Yorker, Metropolitan, Puck, Cosmopolitan, and more.

Opening March 27th, 2015 and running through April 26th, 2015, The Art Young Gallery at the 1842 Second Meeting House (home of the Bethel Historical Society), will host the first solo exhibition of Art Young s work since 1939. The exhibit will feature many pages of one of a kind correspondence, a plethora of the publications in which Art Young appeared, numerous pieces of original art - including works from the extensive collection of Glenn Bray (author of the beautiful comic-art tome The Blighted Eye), as well as the jewel of the exhibit - the original large-format pen and ink illustration of Capitalism (also referred to as The Last Supper). Capitalism is considered by many to be one of the top-three most famous works of Art Young and was included in the Contemporary American Artists exhibit at the immortal 1939 New York World s Fair.

All of these efforts have a singular goal in mind - to rekindle the legacy of Art Young - a Bethelite, an artist, a humanist, a humorist, whose name has been unceremoniously lost to time, but has yet to be forgotten.  Who better than his friends and neighbors, the family to which he always returned, to lift him up once more and keep his dream alive?


Types of the Old Home Town will be available on January 14th, 2015 - Art Young s 149th birthday. The book is an artistic piece to properly give homage to Art Young s legacy - there is a numbered and limited first edition of 333 books. They are all handmade and hand-stitched, hard-covered and dust-jacketed books. Further, three random books in the run will have authentic Art Young autographs inserted into them as an added collector s treasure!