"Wow! A Peezer!"

I guess I have a good sense of what to collect even though I've read nothing about the hobby of postcard collecting and none of the price guides, etc.

I was just Googling this to find out if "W.H. Peezer" really existed, or whether the painter is apocryphal. I suspected this might be an advertisement in postcard form.

What I did find is this postcard for sale for $18.00 at The Right Dog Antiques and Collectibles.

This is what the seller wrote about the artist and their specimen of this postcard:

"Scottish Terrier and Pekingese dog by the wonderful artist Zito, ''Wow! A Peezer'', 1937. The Scottie and Pekingese dog are looking at a painting by W. H. Peeser and putting their own spin on what the artist was representing.

"Zito whose fame as a caricaturist was well established when he first began to sketch dogs in idle moments as an escape from his work in drawing the world's most beautiful women and the world's most famous men. His humor and understanding of dogs is just delightful.

"Originally from a book published in 1937 this delightful Scotty, and Pekingese black and white (with just the tiniest bit of yellowing from age) picture measures approximately 8 3/4 x 12 inches and would be just wonderful framed."

It's on stiff cardboard exactly the weight of that used for shirts in a department store.

Nothing printed or written on the reverse. Unused.

My copy isn't yellowed like theirs.

Nah nah nah nah nah.

Here's a link to the viewworthy artwork of Antony Zito, who I believe is probably a descendant or relation of the Zito being referenced above.

Antony Zito's portraiture

He often does artwork on found objects.

I love the putto painted on an automobile's air filter.

The Zito whose artwork appeared on this card is Vinzento Zito.

I'm not sure if he was better known as an illustrator or caricuraturist than as a portraitist, but I'm leaning that direction.

Here is Christopher Wheeler's collection of Zito art.

More Zitos.

And here are some paintings of celebrities or almost-celebrities that came up for auction recently.

You can see that even when he was being a portrait painter, he sort of remained an illustrator or caricuraturist. Alas.

Some paintings by Vinzento Zito

You can tell the popularity of his artwork didn't really outlast his lifetime by the prices on that lot of paintings.