Shemp Howard

Shemp Howard

$325.00

2 in stock

Only twenty-five (25) prints of SHEMP HOWARD were produced for this 2016 edition. Each print is signed in the lower right, hand-titled in the center, and numbered in the lower left (all beneath the image).

The image area is approximately 16″ high x 14″ wide centered on an untrimmed 22″ x 17″ sheet. Paper, ink, and production specifications, as well as shipping details, are available on our PRINT SPECS page.

Prices will increase for subsequent prints as the edition depletes. Purchase price does not include shipping costs, which are calculated during checkout. Any number of remaining prints can be purchased, each at the current asking price (with flat rate shipping). The two remaining prints can be purchased together, each at the current price (at flat rate shipping). Once the edition sells out, this work will no longer be available from us as a fine art print.

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Description

Over the years I’ve drawn Shemp Howard many times—for the cover of my first comics anthology, for various books, magazines, and prints, and (for some inexplicable reason) for the cover of the defunct sex rag SCREW. I’m often asked: “Why do you love Shemp so much?” Let me clarify my feelings.

I’m a lifelong Three Stooges fan. I’ve always adored them, and they still make me laugh. I love each of them, even the two Joes—Besser, and the much maligned DeRita. The latter fit the bill, at least physically, when he was recruited to join the aging Moe and Larry late in the game. No one could compare to Curly or Shemp as the “third Stooge”—those were impossibly big and funny shoes to fill. But Curly Joe did his own thing, with subtle gestures that were easy to miss if you weren’t watching closely.

I adore Moe. No comic actor has been angrier (with little or no provocation) and funnier at the same time. I’m fascinated by Larry, the thinking man’s Stooge, the (usually) innocent Stooge in the middle, the audience’s surrogate (as my friend Eddie Gorodetsky pointed out). Curly was beyond funny, not even identifiably human, almost from another planet he was so brilliant as a comedian.

Then there’s Moe and Curly’s older brother Shemp (born Samuel Horwitz, in 1895). Shemp is the Stooge with whom I was most intrigued. He looked real—maybe the drunken guy you’d see at large family gatherings (weddings, Seders, and Bar Mitzvahs). Always drinking, dancing, flirting, carrying on a bit too much. While the other Stooges looked like professional comedians—broad caricatures of human archetypes—Shemp was accessible, a regular guy you might see working in a crummy restaurant, a crummy shoe store, or a crummy cigar store. He did have a comedian’s face, but with his black, greasy, parted hair, and short, stocky build, he came across like a crazy New York neighborhood guy who’d wandered onto the movie set.

I love drawing Shemp’s face. He’s been called “The ugliest man in Hollywood” (a title he enjoyed). True, perhaps, but he was dapper, and I’ve always seen and championed the beauty in ugliness. There’s no face I enjoy capturing more than Shemp’s, in its hysterical, wild-eyed, pockmarked glory.

And there’s the name “Shemp.” It’s a beautiful, unique name/word/sound/croak that fits and becomes him, and only him. My wife Kathy and I have no children, but if we did, one of them—boy or girl—would be Shemp Friedman. There are other Moes, Larrys, Curlys, and Joes. But there’s only ONE Shemp.

— Drew Friedman