Antique Banjo w 1923 NYU Fraternal Artwork & Inscriptions w Stanley Kubrick Dad

Description

This is truly a remarkable estate discovery and a real piece of Americana. Professing a lack of expertise, this is I believe an antique, late 19th Century, early 20th Century Richter 8 string Mandolin-banjo (research provides such an instrument was first patented in 1882 by Benjamin Bradbury of Brooklyn, having eight strings rather than 4 and combining a banjo body with the neck and tuning of a mandolin or violin. What is even equally impressive to the discovery of such an antique instrument is the incredible folk art display of original drawings, captions and signings from who were obviously fraternity members, most appearing to be from “NYU,” New York University, Class of 1923. Dates, inscriptions, drawings and details include fraternity letters, individual names, class dates, gambling, drinking, sports, studies and music – ALL done by hand by many individuals on the original instrument skin, or banjo skin.
And if this were not enough, I firmly believe that one such signor to this instrument, “Jack Kubrick,” to be the father of iconic film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor and photographer Stanley Kubrick best known for such groundbreaking films as “2001: A Space Odyssey, “The Shining,” and “A Clockwork Orange.”
A review of Stanley’s personal life and those of his parents place him in time and place, pointing to his birth father Jacob also known as Jack having been at NYU at the time of his signing this banjo skin and eventually graduating the New York Homeopathic Medical College in 1927 (as would be the case having matriculated NYU in 1923).
Given the status and history of NYU and New York City during this era it is likely that other signors may have served a place in history also.
This is a fabulous piece of Americana. A truly unique, one-of-a-kind antique musical instrument decorated by hand to provide an authentic American Folk Art artifact by whose hands include the father of one of the most legendary names in American Film Making!
SEE BELOW DETAILS OF STANLEY KUBRICK’s PERSONAL EARLY LIFE CITE: WIKIPEDIA
Early life
Stanley Kubrick was born on July 26, 1928, in Lying-In Hospital at
307 2nd Avenue in The Bronx, New York
City. He was the first of two children of Jacob Leonard Kubrick (May 21, 1902 – October 19, 1985), known as Jack or Jacques, and his wife Sadie Gertrude Kubrick (née Perveler; October 28, 1903 – April 23, 1985), known as Gert, both of whom were Jewish. His sister, Barbara Mary Kubrick, was born in May 1934. Jack Kubrick, whose parents and paternal grandparents were of Polish, Austrian, and Romanian origin, was a doctor, graduating from the New York Homeopathic Medical College in 1927, the same year he married Kubrick's mother, the child of Austrian immigrants. Kubrick's great-grandfather, Hersh Kubrick (also spelled 'Kubrik' or 'Kubrike'), arrived at Ellis Island via Liverpool by ship on December 27, 1899 at the age of 47, leaving behind his wife and two grown-up children, one of whom was Stanley's grandfather Elias, to start a new life with a younger woman. Elias Kubrick followed in 1902. At Stanley's birth, the Kubricks lived in an apartment at
2160 Clinton Avenue
in the Bronx. Although his parents had been married in a Jewish ceremony, Kubrick did not have a religious upbringing, and, in his later life, he professed an atheistic view of the universe. By the district standards of the West Bronx, the family were fairly wealthy, his father earning a good income from his work as a physician……….