This item is a vintage magazine clipping featuring a comedic advertisement illustrated by the iconic mid-century American cartoonist Virgil Franklin Partch (commonly known by his signature, VIP).
This specific piece is highly valued by collectors because it originated from the personal art collection of Thornton "T." Hee, a legendary Disney animator, director, and story writer.
The Elements of the Item
The Artist (Virgil Partch / VIP): Partch was a former Disney animator who left the studio after the famous 1941 animator's strike.
He became one of the most celebrated and surreal gag cartoonists of the 1940s and 50s, publishing in massive national magazines like Collier's, True, and Playboy.
He was famous for his distinctively zany, distorted anatomical styles.
The Subject ("VIP's Hair Types"):
During the 1940s and 1950s, major commercial brands hired famous cartoonists to draw their print advertisements.
"Hair Types" refers to a satirical, illustrated chart mapping out different funny, exaggerated hairstyles or personality types, used as a comedic pitch to sell a consumer product (such as hair tonics like Vitalis or Wildroot Cream-Oil, which frequently ran cartoon ads during that era).
The Provenance (The T. Hee Collection): T. Hee was a giant in the golden age of animation, known for directing the "Dance of the Hours" segment in Fantasia and working on Pinocchio.
Animation artists of that era kept extensive, meticulous "clip files"—binders or boxes filled with magazine tear-sheets, comic strips, and ads from peers they admired to use as creative inspiration.
When an item like this is sold in the animation art market, it is typically an authentic piece of mid-century ephemera mounted or preserved with a certificate or stamp proving it was owned by T. Hee.
Collectors prize these because they bridge the gap between commercial advertising history and the personal inspirations of Disney's foundational artists.
CLIPPING IN VINTAGE AS SEEN CONDITION
SOLD AS-IS
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