Clifford K Berryman

Sorry for not blogging for a while, I have been away on business. I have an exciting new project which might interest some Bear/Steiff lovers out there. I will keep you post as things develop.

Here I am showing you some original Clifford K Berryman artwork in the form of dinner place setting cards, that I have just sold to a client. They are two exciting and wonderful not to share.

They are all dated from the early 1940s and feature Berryman's famous bear that he first drew when Roosevelt refused to shoot a little bear cub in the Washington Post on 14th November 1902.
The Berryman's seemed to have had a fair few dinner parties and it looks like each person had a personalised card. The ones that have survived appear to have been done for his family.When at Christie's I sold a very important group of Teddy Bears and soft toys, which belonged to Berryman (13 December 2005); these were from the estate sale of Berryman's daughter Florence. This was held at an auction house in Washington in 1992, it is presumed that these are from the same sale.
It was during this auction, a similar postcard was sold within the lot and from this we discovered that this little bear had a name, Bevo. He had become a star in his own right. One of the bears in the Christie's lot was a very fine black American Teddy Bear which had the same facial mask as Bevo. At the time I believed this to be Berryman's very own Teddy Bear of Bevo.

It can be claimed that Berryman was the true creator of the Teddy Bear and this makes these original drawing very important items in Teddy Bear history.