R. Crumb: Mr. Natural and Drawings from the 1960s | David Zwirner

R Crumb: Mr. Natural and Drawings from the 1960s

“I lived out my youth on paper, basically. I am a bookmaker. I see blank books, I want to fill them—notebooks, sketchbooks, blank pages.... I had ideas for comic strips that I had sketched down.”
— R. Crumb

A search for the source of R. Crumb’s most famous work leads back to the artist’s early drawings. Made during the 1960s in ink or pencil on notebook paper, they offer unparalleled insight into the thoughts, ideas, and obsessions that continue to populate his mature work. A number of these sketches originate in what Crumb has called a “crazy visionary period,” in which many of his signature commentaries and characters—among them Mr. Natural, the bearded guru-cum-charlatan seen here in selected series from the 1990s—came into being.

While often created spontaneously, the pageant of figures and narratives found here is already sophisticated; sometimes signed and dated, these drawings convey a world of intention and energy at the heart of Crumb’s practice. “Above all,” Alfred M. Fischer writes, “he practiced what he preached: not follow any specific direction, not ride any specific idea to death, that is to say, when necessary, just break loose and let ideas leading to new things develop by easy and frivolous playing around across the pages of a sketchbook.”

This Viewing Room is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Drawing for Print: Mind Fucks, Kultur Klashes, Pulp Fiction & Pulp Fact by the Illustrious R. Crumb, on view through April 13, 2019 at 519 West 19th Street New York.

R. Crumb, Mystic Funnies #1: Omen in the Gloamin with Mr. Natural and the Gang, c. 1997 (detail)

R. Crumb, Mystic Funnies #1: Omen in the Gloamin with Mr. Natural and the Gang, c. 1997 (detail)

“People find their way to Crumb. They may see one at a friend's house, a guilty treasure, tucked away for their adult friends. Once they see them, they know they’ve seen something unusual and they want more. The audience for this kind of work has never been a mass audience, but it’s never been an exclusive high-toned art audience either. It’s an audience of people who are visually sophisticated, verbally sophisticated and unembarrassed by their own senses of humor.” —Robert Storr

R. Crumb

Mystic Funnies #1: Omen in the Gloamin with Mr. Natural and the Gang, c. 1977

Ink and correction fluid on paper in six (6) parts

Each: 14 x 11 inches (35.6 x 27.9 cm)

R. Crumb

Mystic Funnies #1: I Don't Get It, 1997

Ink and correction fluid on paper

14 x 11 inches (35.5 x 28 cm)
Framed: 20 5/8 x 17 5/8 inches (52.4 x 44.8 cm)

R. Crumb

Mystic Funnies #1: The Saints featuring Mr. Natural, Flake Foont, Wendy, and Rebecca, c. 1997

Ink and correction fluid on paper in eleven (11) parts

Each: 14 x 11 inches (35.6 x 27.9 cm)

R. Crumb

Mystic Funnies #1: Mr. Natural and Flakey Foont in Big Man, c. 1977

Ink and correction fluid on paper in three (3) parts

Each: 14 x 11 inches (35.6 x 27.9 cm)

R. Crumb, Mystic Funnies #1: The Saints featuring Mr. Natural, Flake Foont, Wendy, and Rebecca, c. 1997 (detail)

R. Crumb, Mystic Funnies #1: The Saints featuring Mr. Natural, Flake Foont, Wendy, and Rebecca, c. 1997 (detail)

“These comics are from the 1960s but they are amazingly fresh. You look at them and could say that you are looking at an early Picasso or early Van Gogh. He made the first ones when he was an adolescent and you watch him training himself to make a certain kind of style.”
—Robert Storr

R. Crumb

Very Funny Mr. Snoid, c. 1960s

Ink on notebook paper

9 5/8 x 7 5/8 inches (24.4 x 19.4 cm)
Framed: 16 5/8 x 14 5/8 inches (42.2 x 37.1 cm)

R. Crumb

Stoned (Gulp), c. 1960

Ink on notebook paper

9 5/8 x 7 5/8 inches (24.4 x 19.4 cm)
Framed: 16 5/8 x 14 1/2 inches (42.2 x 36.8 cm)

“It is … not surprising that Crumb executed most of his drawings in sketchbooks. Few of them can be considered sketches of ideas, most being completely finished drawings, some even individually signed and dated. The sketchbooks are actually diaries that record spontaneous thoughts and some long statements and commentaries, in part on social, cultural or political matters.” — Alfred M. Fischer, “Yeah but is it art,” in Yeah, But Is It Art: R. Crumb Drawings and Comics, 2004

R. Crumb

Untitled (Dean, 10 April 1961, from School Notebook 1961 pg. 77/78), 1961

Ink and graphite on paper

Double-sided 8 1/8 x 5 1/4 inches (20.6 x 13.3 cm)

R. Crumb

Untitled (from School Notebook 1961 pg. 51/52), 1961

Ink and graphite on paper

Double-sided 8 1/8 x 5 1/4 inches (20.6 x 13.3 cm)

R. Crumb

Untitled (Help! from School Notebook 1961 pg. 49/50), c. 1962

Ink and graphite on paper

Double-sided 8 1/8 x 5 1/4 inches (20.6 x 13.3 cm)

“There are individual crazy pages and they’re in the sketchbooks and they’re in some of his comic books, but mostly he stays in the main lane of his own talent, but he does things you would not expect him to do and that’s the fun of it.” —Robert Storr

Pages from R. Crumb, Sketchbook, 1979-1981

Pages from R. Crumb, Sketchbook, 1979-1981

Pages from R. Crumb, Sketchbook, 1979-1981

Pages from R. Crumb, Sketchbook, 1979-1981

Pages from R. Crumb, Sketchbook, 1979-1981

Pages from R. Crumb, Sketchbook, 1979-1981

R. Crumb

Untitled (Yuck), c. 1962

Graphite on notebook paper

Double-sided 8 3/8 x 6 3/4 inches (21.3 x 17.1 cm)

R. Crumb

Untitled (You, Maxon's Birthday 28th March '62), 1962

Ink and graphite on notebook paper

Double-sided 8 3/8 x 6 3/4 inches (21.3 x 17.1 cm)

R. Crumb

Untitled (School Notebook 1961, pg. 3/4), 1961

Ink and graphite on paper

Double-sided 8 1/8 x 5 1/4 inches (20.6 x 13.3 cm)

”I lived out my youth on paper, basically. I am a bookmaker. I see blank books, I want to fill them—notebooks, sketchbooks, blank pages. I never conceived of any of it being published, it was totally for my own edification. I had ideas for comic strips that I had sketched down. And later it all got published, much to my amazement.” — R. Crumb in conversation with Ted Widmer in The Paris Review, 2010

R. Crumb

Untitled (NY Times City Edition, 4 April '61, from School Notebook 1961 pg. 67/68), 1961

Ink and graphite on paper

Double-sided 8 1/8 x 5 1/4 inches (20.6 x 13.3 cm)

R. Crumb

Untitled (No No No Sandra's Playing Oklahoma No No), c. 1962

Ink and graphite on notebook paper

Double-sided 8 3/8 x 6 3/4 inches (21.3 x 17.1 cm)

R. Crumb, Untitled (School Notebook 1961, pg. 3/4), 1961 (detail)

R. Crumb, Untitled (School Notebook 1961, pg. 3/4), 1961 (detail)

R. Crumb

Dancing Couple with Portraits, c. 1960s

Ink on paper

9 5/8 x 7 5/8 inches (24.4 x 19.4 cm)
Framed: 16 3/8 x 14 1/2 inches (41.6 x 36.8 cm)

R. Crumb

Judy Seigal, c. 1960s

Ink on paper

10 1/8 x 7 5/8 inches (25.7 x 19.4 cm)
Framed: 16 3/4 x 14 1/4 inches (42.5 x 36.2 cm)

R. Crumb

Untitled (Street Scene), c. 1960s

Ink on paper

10 1/4 x 7 7/8 inches (26 x 20 cm)
Framed: 19 1/4 x 16 1/4 inches (48.9 x 41.3 cm)

R. Crumb

Untitled, c. 1960s

Graphite on notebook paper

Double-sided 8 3/8 x 6 5/8 inches (21.3 x 16.8 cm)
Framed: 11 5/8 x 10 1/8 inches (29.5 x 25.7 cm)

Explore More by R. Crumb

Download Fact Sheet