A delightful tryptic pen & ink drawing by noted female artist and illustrator Nell Brinkley captioned “I’ll Never Speak To You Again!… Darling!” This finds a young newly married couple in various stages of a spirited lovers quarrel. The left-most image shows the couple fuming, the middle appears to focus on a vision of what life might look like without one another, and the right hand image shows the pair’s romantic reconciliation. Signed upper right and dated 1935, the illustration is nicely matted and framed under glass.

A partial biography of the artist by Martha Kennedy for the Library of Congress:

During what historians call the era of the “New Woman,” increasing numbers of women pursued higher education, romance, marriage, leisure activities, and a sense of individuality with greater independence. New era women sought equality and opportunity through more active roles in the public realm.

Nell Brinkley stood out during this period as a female pioneer in the field of illustration, a woman artist who created the “Brinkley Girl,” a highly popular icon. She drew active idealistic young women in illustrations for newspaper feature stories that she wrote. “Golden Eyes,” a World War I heroine who promoted the sale of Liberty Bonds and supported overseas war efforts, emerges as one of Brinkley’s most memorable creations.

In her fine-lined Art Nouveau manner, Brinkley portrayed her heroine as a dynamic, windblown symbol of women’s active patriotism.”

“The Three Graces”, her drawing which idolized “the three graces of suffrage, preparedness and Americanism,” set a new standard for feminine beauty and inspired a whole generation of women artists, including Dale Messick, the creator of the comic series ‘Brenda Starr, Reporter.’