elvis’ golden caricatures volume 2 (rollin’ the 50s)

Es­ti­mated reading time is 4 min­utes.

ELVIS’ GOLDEN CAR­I­CA­TURES VOLUME 2 is the second volume of car­i­ca­tures of Presley shakin’ an’ rat­tlin’ an’ rockin’ an’ rollin’ the ’50s! Like the first volume, this col­lects fif­teen im­ages of the singer/actor in his youthful prime. There are four­teen im­ages in the main gallery, and there is the fea­tured image found at the top of the page and below the gallery.

For more in­for­ma­tion on car­i­ca­tures and this project, refer to the first volume of this se­ries of ar­ti­cles. I have al­ter­nated black and white pieces with col­ored below, and they are in roughly chrono­log­ical order.

Each image had the artist’s name be­neath it. Each name—and many are first names only fol­lowed by the last name’s initial—is hy­per­linked to a page that will give you more in­for­ma­tion on the artist.

Hope you enjoy seeing these im­ages as much as I did finding them . . .

 

 

Golden Caricatures Volume 2: caricature of Elvis by Dan S.

Artist: Dan S

This pencil drawing is based on photos of Elvis taken around the time he was making Love Me Tender. Note the wildly ex­ag­ger­ated eye make-up, some­thing that he wore during the filming and used on stage af­ter­wards. The artist’s use of hatching-like ver­tical strokes in the back­ground both softens the fig­ure’s out­line while adding weight to the image.

 

 

Golden Caricatures Volume 2: caricature of Elvis by Julio Ibara.

Artist: Julio Ibarra

This highly ex­ag­ger­ated close-up stresses Pres­ley’s cheeks and jaw in an en­gaging, car­toonish manner. Note the nose, which looks like Elvis has been in one too many fights and had it broken and reset sev­eral times.

 

 

Golden Caricatures Volume 2: caricature of Elvis by unknown artist.

Artist: Un­known

This is a fairly sober and se­date image of Elvis, and one of the few car­i­ca­tures that I found that pays at­ten­tion to the fact that Elvis al­ways paid at­ten­tion to the making of his music. At least until the mid-’60s, when the movie-making ma­chine had turned each sound­track ses­sion into an event that was a some­thing to sur­vive rather than take joy in . . .

 

 

Golden Caricatures Volume 2: caricature of Elvis by Johannes Saurer.

Artist: Jo­hannes Saurer

An­other playful image, this time taken from Pres­ley’s ap­pear­ance on the Milton Berle Show on June 5, 1956. This was the ver­sion of Hound Dog that started critics across the country to take no­tice of the young singer with the mo­bile hips.

 

 

Golden Caricatures Volume 2: caricature of Elvis by Miguel A.

Artist: Miguel A

This drawing could be of Elvis from any time in the ’50s. Miguel A’s style seems a com­bi­na­tion of Mex­ican pop artists and Mad mag­a­zine with a touch of un­der­ground comix of the early ’70s (es­pe­cially Skip Williamson).

 

 

Golden Caricatures Volume 2: caricature of Elvis by Benjamin Strobel.

Artist: Ben­jamin Strobel

This is an­other rel­a­tively se­date ren­dering of Elvis: I can’t place the artist’s in­spi­ra­tion it in time—it may even be from the early ’60s.

 

 

Golden Caricatures Volume 2: caricature of Elvis by Omar Momani.

Artist: Omar Mo­mani

This drawing is more car­toon than car­i­ca­ture: this ver­sion of Elvis would not be out-of-place on an episode of The Simp­sons! Nonethe­less, it’s too damn goofily lik­able not to include.

 

 

Golden Caricatures Volume 2: caricature of Elvis by Felixantos.

Artist: Fe­lixantos

The filigree-like de­sign of Pres­ley’s collar is ac­tu­ally the artist’s name.

 

 

Golden Caricatures Volume 2: caricature of Elvis by Joan Vizcarra.

Artist: Joan Viz­carra

This rather gross like­ness was in­spired by the first pub­licity photos that RCA Victor took of their new artist. It hap­pened on De­cember 1, 1955, when Presley and Parker went to New York to sign and meet their new bosses.

Elvis was pho­tographed in a va­riety of set­tings, in­cluding with his guitar in the recording studio. Elvis didn’t ac­tu­ally record a word for Victor until Jan­uary 10, 1956, when he cut I Got A Woman, Heart­break Hotel, and Money Honey.

 

 

Golden Caricatures Volume 2: caricature of Elvis by unknown artist.

Artist: Un­known

I couldn’t find an artist credit for this image, one of my fav­er­avest of these car­i­ca­tures. The artist ex­ag­ger­ated as­pects of child­ish­ness in Elvis’s fea­tures, making this a rather en­dearing image. It was in­spired by Pres­ley’s ap­pear­ance on the Milton Berle Show on June 5, 1956.

 

 

Golden Caricatures Volume 2: caricature of Elvis by Tony Araujo.

Artist: Tony Araujo

Pres­ley’s dance scene from Jail­house Rock (1957) caught the at­ten­tion of quite a few car­i­ca­tur­ists, and I have se­lected sev­eral for this volume. This nifty gray-toned piece is slightly photorealistic.

 

 

Golden Caricatures Volume 2: caricature of Elvis by Alberto Sting Russo.

Artist: Al­berto “Sting” Russo

Sting Russo (above) and Jota Leal (below) are per­haps the best artists de­voting more than a few hours to imaging Elvis Presley in their car­i­ca­ture work. The image above is time­less (1956? ’57? ’62?)—and I love the bold black strokes that im­i­tate a shirt! (This is my second Sting image; there is also one in the first volume of these caricatures.)

 

 

Golden Caricatures Volume 2: caricature of Elvis by Jota Leal.

Artist: Jota Leal

Great drawing cap­turing an in­tense artist. This also seems in­spired by the De­cember 1, 1955, photo shoot in New York: the haircut and the guitar are my clues. (This is my second Leal image; there is also one in the first volume of these caricatures.)

 

 

Golden Caricatures Volume 2: caricature of Elvis by Ken Robert Hansen.

Artist: Ken Robert Hansen

I thought I would end this gallery sec­tion with an­other image of Elvis dancing to the Jail­house Rock.

 

Elvis caricature 56 Risko 1000

FEA­TURED IMAGE: I could not find a credit for this fab­u­lous Hirschber­gian vi­sion of what ap­pears to be a young Elvis Presley. Please note that I had to take lib­er­ties with the colors and the tone of this art to make it ap­pro­priate for the header image at the top of the page: pri­marily, it had to be dark­ened to allow better read­ability of the white let­ters of this post’s title.

 

Golden Caricatures Volume 2: photo of Elvis in gold lame suit 1957.

POST­SCRIP­TU­ALLY, I have planned four vol­umes of car­i­ca­tures of Elvis in the ’50s, and two each for the ’60s and the ’70s. There are at least two artists who have done enough high-quality car­i­ca­tures of Presley to merit a volume of their own, Al Hirschfeld and Al­berto “Sting” Russo. Here are links to the volumes:

The First Pub­lished Car­i­ca­ture of Elvis Presley
Elvis’ Golden Car­i­ca­tures Volume 1 (Rockin’ the 50s)
Elvis’ Golden Car­i­ca­tures Volume 2 (Rollin’ the 50s)
Elvis’ Golden Car­i­ca­tures Volume 3 (Rat­tlin’ the 50s)
Elvis’ Golden Car­i­ca­tures Volume 4 (Shaggin’ the 50s)
Elvis’ Golden Car­i­ca­tures Volume 5 (Stuck on the 60s)
Elvis’ Golden Car­i­ca­tures Volume 6 (Wild in the 60s)
Elvis’ Golden Car­i­ca­tures Volume 7 (Elvis by Hirschfeld)
Elvis’ Golden Car­i­ca­tures Volume 8 (Love Let­ters from the 70s)
Elvis’ Golden Car­i­ca­tures Volume 9 (Aloha from the 70)
Elvis’ Golden Car­i­ca­tures Volume 10 (Elvis by Russo)

 

 

 

2 thoughts on “elvis’ golden caricatures volume 2 (rollin’ the 50s)”

Leave a Comment