The Magic Collection of Jim Rawlins

[Thayer’s Studio] Six Portraits of Famous Magicians from Brookledge. Los Angeles, ca. 1940. Oversize airbrushed portraits of Kellar, The Great Leon, Frederick Eugene Powell, Alexander Herrmann, Harry Blackstone, and Dante. Each signed by an unknown artist, “Karl,” in the lower right. Original frames, 31 ½ x 27 ½”. Chipped and nicked, some with significant wear, bends, or fading. These eight portraits in the preceding three lots hung at Thayer’s Studio of Magic – Brookledge – in the historic Wilshire district of Los Angeles for nearly a decade. It was there that Floyd Thayer, and later the Larsen family, operated the business. The portraits were part of a collection of posters, prints, and photographs that looked down over many of the most important magical gatherings of the 1940s, as Brookledge was, in some ways, the focal point of the Los Angeles magic scene.