Born in ItalianHarlem in 1916 Ravielli started out as a portrait painter and worked inadvertising before becoming an author and freelance illustratormastering a style known as scratchboard (or “scraperboard” to theBritish). In 1957 Ben Hogan known to be secretive about hispicture-perfect form approached Ravielli to illustrate his legendaryswing for what would become one of the most important golf instructionbooks ever: Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf. After 60 years it remains a best seller with one million copies sold.

Before longanother golf legend sought to collaborate with Ravielli none other thanthe greatest amateur champion and most influential contributor in thesport’s history: the great Bobby Jones who created the world’s mostfamous golf course and tournament. The Masters at Augusta Nationalremains synonymous with his name 84 years later. While Hogan’s careerlegacy seemed to come to fruition with his "Five Lessons”—thanks inlarge part to Ravielli—Jones spent decades designing courses and clubsproducing instructional films in Hollywood making innovative changes tothe Masters to improve tournament play and practicing law.

In themid-1960’s perhaps intrigued by the success of Hogan’s book Jonesbegan working with Ravielli to publish his own teachings inviting therespected illustrator/author to Augusta to watch him practice. Ravielliwould observe and sketch Jones—another artist at work—and later theywould discuss what each image was trying to communicate. This processwould go on for several weeks as the two spent countless hoursone-on-one together on the course at the range and in Jones’ privatehome all to capture the essence of Bobby’s innate vision and personalwisdom that he so wanted to instill in aspiring golfers. Bobby Jones andAnthony Ravielli developed a close relationship as golfer and artistso much so that Jones would not work with any other illustrator todocument the fundamental principles of his swing.

Presented inthis lot are Anthony Ravielli’s incredibly rare 1-of-1 originalillustrations commissioned in 1965 by Bobby Jones for his 1966 book Bobby Jones on Golf: The Classic Instructional by Golf’s Greatest Legend. This was the first of two instructional books by Jones and Ravielli the other being The Basic Golf Swing in 1969. In many eyes Bobby Jones on Golf became just as significant as Hogan’s Five Lessons in developing the game.

Included are twosets of black and white pencil sketches done side-by-side on a 12” by18.75” folded piece of vellum. The left side shows a close-up of Jones’hands at impact with one smaller background image of his backswing justprior to impact. The right side shows Jones’ full-body pose at impactwith bolder pencil strokes highlighting his forward leaning front leftleg and a four-step collage of the backswing coming to impact. Inaddition there are two attached pages—stapled to their correspondingillustrations—of Jones’ original typewritten text to his publisher alongwith Jones’ handwritten corrections for the publisher that werereturned for publication. These notes share Jones’ original thoughtsalong with his edited comments.

Thisone-of-a-kind offering opens a window into the private world of golf’sgreatest contributor and the game’s most respected illustrator. Thesesketches have never before been offered publicly. Our consignor apublished golf author himself obtained them from the the privatecollection of the late Anthony Ravielli’s estate. They were cherishedpieces for the Ravielli family from the days when their father wouldcome home from Augusta and tell them the beautiful stories of his timewith Bobby Jones who died in 1971. The preferred illustrator for TomWatson and Jack Nicklaus as well Ravielli was the single most importantartist to ever document the swings of golfers from the 1950's until hispassing in 1997 at the age of 81.