With all the attention I give to Woody Gelman here, I sometimes feel like his old art agency partner Ben Solomon gets short shrift. One of the reasons is that there is far less out there, info-wise, on Ben than Woody. I am working on correcting that but I still don't have a lot of details on Mr. Solomon; in fact I'm not even sure when he joined Topps. It may have been as late as 1964 or as early as the mid 50's. I do believe he came over after Woody (who in turn, I think, was still a Solomon & Gelman partner when he went to work for and at Topps in 1952-53).
Ben Solomon was the Art Director for Topps in it's go-go days and had final approval over all artwork from many of their sets and products. I will turn up more on him but for now here is a small picture, courtesy of his daughter, Lois Grabash, of the man who launched a thousand sets (OK, maybe I'm exaggerating a little!):
I am welcoming any and all information any of you out there may have on Ben while I dig into his past. I do know he encountered Woody when they were both animators in the 1930's and that he directed about a dozen cartoons for Fleischer Brothers and Famous Studios.
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