Artist/ Cartoonist Estate Sale | Claverack, NY

  We are pleased to be selling the contents of the estate of Matthew Hilt (“Matt”) Murphy of Claverack, New York (formerly of Bronxville, NY) who passed away November 20, 2014 at the age of 91.

   Matt joined the U.S. Navy in 1943 and while stationed at Sampson Naval Training Base was involved with preparing and painting 3-D maps of Japan in preparation for a ground assault on Japan. Continuing an interest in cartooning, he drew Boots McGee for the camp paper at the base. Honorably discharged in 1946, he attended NYU. He spent the next few years lending his artistic talent to King Features Syndicate and then Harvey Publications on their comics.
   In 1951 Matt began work as Executive Editor at Western Publishing where in partnership with Helen Meyer at Dell Publishing he oversaw their joint comic book business until Western split from Dell in 1962 when they began Gold Key Comics under Matt’s editorial direction. While in that capacity he managed the creation of numerous comics based on properties from Disney (he was good friends with Walt Disney), motion pictures, television and newspaper strips and, most notably, in partnership with Paul S. Newman created Dr. Solar, Man of the Atom and Turok, Son of Stone. When Western decided to relocate its offices, Matt bid the company farewell and decided to explore new endeavors.
   Photography was a lifelong passion. So it was natural that his next venture was the creation of Picture Craft Corporation where Matt did commercial photography, photo dupes for book production and created his own computer-generated comic strip, Clanky. In 1972 he joined C.R. Gibson as Publications Director and later Watson Guptill Publishing from 1978 to 1981.