Louis Armstrong numbered giclée print

History of Crumb's Loius Armstrong Portrait

Crumb originally painted a water color portrait of Louis Armstrong (using the same photograph as this portrait) for the Early Jazz Greats card set in 1982. In 2010, he created a black and white ink drawing from the same photograph, and that was used by Amoeba Music to create a colored serigraph edition (and later, a lithograph edition based upon that serigraph). In 2012, rcrumb.com released a 50 print etching edition of this same portrait–in black and white only–which sold out very quickly.

Finally, this year (2026), rcrumb.com is releasing a new giclée edition of Crumb's portrait of Louis Armstrong. Crumb gave Alex a color guide and he insisted on the same color background which he reqyested for the Amoeba edition–a light yellow background fading to green. So both color editions look very similar. Alex tried his best to talk Crumb into a different color background, but Crumb wanted a light yellow background fading to green! This giclée edition is slightly smaller: the paper is 18" x 24"; the image size is 13" x 18."

Great care was taken to keep Crumb's line work detailed and crisp with this edition. The colors are vibrant and saturated. Epson Ultrachrome inks, which are–according to Epson–archival, were used to print this edition on Somerset velvet paper, which is also archival. Your satisfaction is guaranteed!