Dunninger, Joseph. (1892–1975)
Signed Photograph
Signed photograph of "The Amazing Dunninger," one of the pioneer performers of magic on radio and television, who has inscribed "To my friend Geo Gaber/ Best Wishes-/ Dunninger." Dated by the recipient "10/56" in ink to lower margin, vertical creases to right, else fine. 8 x 10 inches (20.3 x 25.4 cm.).A contemporary and friend of Harry Houdini (1874–1926), Dunninger had a standing $10,000 offer to anyone who could prove that he used stooges in his act. A similar reward was on offer through Scientific American magazine and his own Universal Council for Psychic Research, offering a cash reward to any medium who could produce through allegedly psychic or supernatural means any physical phenomena he could not duplicate or explain by natural means. "Through all these long years," he once said, "I have sought good honest ghosts, phantoms, spirits, astral beings, banshees, fays, wee folk, apparitions, fetches - the whole pack and passel of the unsubstantiated world - and I have always been able to prove them frauds."
From the collection of George Gaber (1916–2007), noted percussionist who performed with a number of professional ensembles, including the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Baltimore Symphony and worked with Leonard Bernstein, Otto Klemperer, Igor Stravinsky, Henry Mancini, Duke Ellington and many others over the span of his career. From 1960 to 1986 taught percussion at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University and was also an artist in residence at Carnegie Mellon University, an adjudicator for National Music Arts in Japan and the Canadian Music Competition, and a Hall of Fame recipient in Percussion Arts Society.
Signed Photograph Performing Arts & Media