My Copy of All the Presidents by Drew Friedman

Caricaturist Drew Friedman's new opus includes, as the title says, All the Presidents and more. My prized copy of the inspired book is signed and inscribed by the artist:

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Drew Friedman

Presidents

Kurt Andersen

Attempted Bloggery's Executive Index

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Drew Friedman: All the Presidents

A new volume of portraits by illustrator and caricaturist Drew Friedman has just been released. As the book cover indicates, All the Presidents contains thoughtful, telling portraits of each of America's forty-four presidents. (NB: There are forty-five presidencies because Grover Cleveland served as the 22nd and 24th president.)

Drew Friedman
All the Presidents (2019)

http://www.fantagraphics.com/all-the-presidents/

The book's publication is being celebrated tonight in Strand Bookstore's Rare Book Room.  (The entrance is on Broadway at 12th Street.) Mr. Friedman will be there in conversation with comedian Robert Klein. The ticket price includes a copy of the book, and there will be a signing immediately following the conversation.

The book goes by the numbers, beginning with George Washington. It's strange to see a president with no party affiliation. How long do you suppose that would last? The two-party system, remember, is not a part of our written Constitution.

Drew Friedman
1:  George Washington

http://www.fantagraphics.com/all-the-presidents/

It has been extraordinarily rewarding to watch Drew Friedman develop his technique and extend his expressive range in recent years. This new book contains some of his most perceptive character studies, certainly among the best he has ever done. They reveal new insights with repeated viewings.

Drew Friedman
26:  Theodore Roosevelt

http://www.fantagraphics.com/all-the-presidents/

Just to quibble, a word or two might be in order here regarding party designation. Republicans, of course, are members of the Republican Party—no confusion there. Democrats, on the other hand, are members of the Democratic Party, not the "Democrat Party." "Democrat Party," in fact, is meant as a slur and it has been spoken so frequently by Republicans in recent decades that we hardly notice it anymore. So, while Barack Obama is indeed a proud Democrat, his party's proper name is still the Democratic Party.

Drew Friedman
44:  Barack Obama

http://www.fantagraphics.com/all-the-presidents/

The following extraordinary presidential portraits are new to the internet. These higher-resolution images have been graciously provided to Attempted Bloggery by the artist:

Drew Friedman
6:  John Quincy Adams

Image courtesy of the artist

Drew Friedman
16:  Abraham Lincoln

Image courtesy of the artist

Drew Friedman
34:  Dwight Eisenhower

Image courtesy of the artist

Drew Friedman
44:  Barack Obama

Image courtesy of the artist

Drew Friedman's artistic process begins with a detailed preliminary pencil study:

Drew Friedman
Preliminary art
45:  Donald Trump

Image courtesy of the artist

After this he develops the finished portrait: 

Drew Friedman
45:  Donald Trump

Image courtesy of the artist

While Drew Friedman's New Yorker cover makes no secret of his interest in presidential portraiture, it uses a more fanciful approach than we see in the contents of this book.

Drew Friedman
The New Yorker, January 26, 2009

But wait, there's more! All the original artwork from All the Presidents will be exhibited at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at OSU along with over one-hundred of the artist's various presidential images from over the years, including the original Barack Obama inauguration New Yorker cover, above, and presidential ephemera from the artist's personal collection. The show opens on November 2 and will run through February 9, 2020. The official opening reception will be on Saturday the 16th of November when the artist will be giving a talk moderated by caricaturist and illustrator C. F. Payne.

Note:  The October 3rd event at Strand is preserved on YouTube here:

Video added October 18, 2019

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Drew Friedman

Presidents

Kurt Andersen

Attempted Bloggery's Unimpeachable Index

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Emily Flake Drew These

Last month at Parsons School of Design I attended a panel discussion which dared to ask, Is The American Bystander "The Last Great Humor Magazine?" The short answer is yes.

During the panel, New Yorker cartoonist Emily Flake unobtrusively made some pencil sketches on a folded sheet of paper. At the conclusion, illustrator and collagist Stephen Kroninger sagely suggested that she donate the sheet to a worthy cause: this blog. She seemed surprised that I would be interested in publicizing these fanciful images but she was willing to humor me by writing "Emily Flake drew these" across the top.

"Emily Flake drew these"

At the panel discussion, Ms. Flake can be seen putting pencil to this sheet of paper.

Panel, left to right: Sam Gross, Steve Young, Drew Friedman, Emily Flake, Stephen Kroninger, and Michael Gerber

Is The American Bystander "The Last Great Print Humor Magazine?"

April 16, 2019
NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium
Parsons School of Design

https://nycomicssymposium.wordpress.com/2019/04/10/the-american-bystander-april-16-2019-at-7pm/?fbclid=IwAR1jlre9kjB8KtcTEDKU3uG-JGNZCVn2UUdVaJbiMQv14riOeAf2gRnqaYQ

Note:  My thanks to illustrator Stephen Kroninger for spotting Emily Flake's page of whimsy and brokering my acquisition of it. Stephen remains a strong supporter of Attempted Bloggery and is the only contributor to have had his work exhibited at MoMA.


Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Emily Flake

Pencil Sketches

Stephen Kroninger

Drew Friedman

Sam Gross

The American Bystander

Attempted Bloggery's Sketchy Index

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Drew Friedman's Heroes of the Comics

On Thursday evening, I attended the opening of the  exhibition Drew Friedman's "Heroes of the Comics" at the Society of Illustrators. About half of the artist's originals portraits of comic book giants are on display in the narrow second floor gallery.

Drew Friedman just keeps getting better and better. He originally came on the scene with darkly-satirical comics of Hollywood B-listers rendered in painstakingly-stippled india ink. Now he displays mastery of a sumptuous color palette that somehow recalls the Golden Age of comic books—and there's not a stipple in sight. Friedman clearly adores the figures in his Old Jewish Comedians series, but with the comic book artists his adulation, even reverence, is now front and center. That's only fair. Unlike the comedians, many of these artists never achieved the public recognition or financial success they deserved, but they fired up the imagination of millions of young readers. The show continues through June 3.

Wally Wood

Jack Liebowitz and Harry Donenfeld

Jack Kirby

Dave Berg

Joe Simon
Chic Stone

Chic Stone

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster

Mort Drucker

William M. Gaines, top right

Attempted Bloggery's quick links:

Drew Friedman

Attempted Bloggery's Heroic Index

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Rea Irvin and Al Hirschfeld: Harold Ross as Eustace Tilley

Eustace Tilley is the observant dandy who acts as mascot for the New Yorker. He first appeared on the cover of the New Yorker's first issue and he received his euphonious name during the magazine's first year. It was Rea Irvin, the magazine's first art editor, who illustrated that cover. Until fairly recently it has been reproduced more or less annually on the anniversary issue. Eustace Tilley also appears on the magazine's masthead every week and he makes occasional appearances in other illustrations as needed.

Rea Irvin
The New Yorker, February 21, 1925

Harold Ross founded the magazine (with Jane Grant and Raoul Fleischmann) and served as its editor. It was probably only a matter of time before someone portrayed him as Eustace Tilley. A period photo of the young Ross shows his remarkable shock of hair brushed skyward.

Harold Ross, 1926
The photo is apparently reversed.

http://theharlow.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/foto-670x920.jpg

Harold Ross as Eustace Tilley? The idea is straightforward enough. It isn't such a great stretch for an illustrator to depict the New Yorker's founding editor Harold Ross as the foppish Eustace Tilley. The first to do this was Irvin himself. The occasion was a parody issue of the magazine dated November 6, 1926, Ross's birthday. It was circulated in-house at the New Yorker as a gift for Ross.

Irvin, under the joking pseudonym Penaninksky, depicts Ross in profile, adopting Eustace Tilley's characteristic perceptive pose. Ross is shown in silhouette because this one-off had to be printed cheaply in black-and-white. The top hat may be Tilley's but the spiky hair clearly belongs to Ross only. Ross was a chain-smoker and thus a cigarette dangles from his lip. He still wears Tilley's nineteenth century waistcoat but his snazzy shirt and tie belong to the Jazz Age. The delicate butterfly of the classic magazine cover is replaced by the not-so-delicate form of Alexander Woollcott as a fedora-clad spider.

Rea Irvin
The New Yorker in-house parody, November 6, 1926

http://magazinehistory.blogspot.com/2009/02/harold-ross-and-new-yorker.html

A photograph shows the dapper Woollcott's fondness for hats. He doesn't look at all like a spider, does he?

Alexander Woollcott

http://kids.britannica.com/comptons/art-166830/Alexander-Woollcott

Margaret Case Harriman's The Vicious Circle:  The Story of the Algonquin Round Table was published in 1951, a quarter-century later. When illustrator Al Hirschfeld chose to depict the Round Table's Harold Ross in the guise of Eustace Tilley, he was very likely unaware of Rea Irvin's earlier illustration, which had been circulated only within the New Yorker's offices. Ross of course was older now: his head was rounder, he wore glasses, and his once gravity-defying hair was slicked down.

Harold Ross

http://www.futilitycloset.com/2013/12/22/ill-favored/

Hirschfeld depicts Ross with a wheat straw in his mouth, something of an out-of-town rube in high society finery. He is not the first to note Ross's relatively unsophisticated manners which stand in marked contrast to his high social standing at the classy magazine.

Al Hirschfeld "+ R. I."

Harold Ross from The Vicious Circle:  The Story of the Algonquin Round Table, 1951

The book's dustcover reproduces Hirschfeld's caricatures of (left to right, top to bottom) Heywood Broun, Robert Benchley, Harold Ross, Robert Sherwood, Irving Berlin, Marc Connelly, Dorothy Parker, and Alexander Woollcott.

Al Hirschfeld

The Vicious Circle:  The Story of the Algonquin Round Table, 1951 by Margaret Case Harriman

More recently, Thomas Kunkel's biography of Harold Ross uses Rea Irvin's caricature of Ross as Tilley on its cover.

Rea Irvin
Genius in Disguise:  Harold Ross of The New Yorker, 1995, by Thomas Kunkel

April 5, 2016 Update:  A detail of Edward Sorel's mural at Monkey Bar in New York shows Ross in the guise of Eustace Tilley.

Harold Ross as Eustace Tilley
Detail from Edward Sorel's Monkey Bar mural completed in 2009

http://monkeybarnewyork.com/mural.html#

September 5, 2016 Update:  The original artwork by Al Hirschfeld was sold at Swann Galleries in 2008.

Al Hirschfeld "+ R. I."

Original art, Harold Ross from The Vicious Circle: The Story of the Algonquin Round Table, 1951

Swann Galleries, June 12, 2008, Hammer Price

http://catalogue.swanngalleries.com/asp/fullCatalogue.asp?salelot=2149+++++188+&refno=++605107&saletype=

Note:  Artwork from The Vicious Circle is © The Al Hirschfeld Foundation. My thanks to Stephen Kroninger for permission to use his scans of the book. On Tuesday he will participate in a panel discussion entitled "The Hirschfeld Century Speaks" at the Art Students League in Manhattan. Joining him will be Ken Fallin, Drew Friedman, and Bill Jacklin, while David Leopold, the Creative Director of the Al Hirschfeld Foundation, will be moderating. I'll be there in the audience if I can get out of work early enough, which is another way of saying I probably won't be there. Say hi to me anyway.

Have you seen "The Hirschfeld Century" at the New-York Historical Society? It's a stunning show, but it's only there through October 12. Don't miss it.

The scan of the New Yorker's rare parody issue is taken from Magazine History:  A Collector's Blog by Steven Lomazow, M.D. He's that rarity: a doctor interested in scarce printed memorabilia! Who ever heard of such a thing?

Follow the links to more Attempted Bloggery posts about Harold Ross, Alexander Woollcott, Eustace Tilley, Rea Irvin, and Al Hirschfeld.

You might also care to look at Michael Maslin's Ink Spill post on Ross & Tilley.

See how Hirschfeld altered a photo of Harold Ross in Life magazine and got himself banned from the New Yorker for almost six decades. (Thanks again to Stephen Kroninger!)

Please contact me if you have other images of Harold Ross as Eustace Tilley. In particular, I believe there's a 1980's-era photographic illustration by Ellen Page Wilson along these lines.

I'd also love to hear from anyone with interior scans or photos of the New Yorker's rare self-parody issue.

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Drew Friedman's Old Jewish Comedians

Those familiar with this blog may recall the first opening I ever attended was a Drew Friedman show. Well, I guess I haven't learned my lesson. Last night I went to the opening of "Drew Friedman's Old Jewish Comedians" at the Society of Illustrators. In attendance were an impressive array of old and not-so-old Jewish comedians, titans of illustration, media luminaries, Mad magazine legends, and distinguished graduates of the School of Visual Arts--but by the time I got there they were mostly upstairs at the buffet.

http://drewfriedman.blogspot.com/2014/01/old-jewish-comedians-at-society-of.html

http://drewfriedman.blogspot.com/2014/01/old-jewish-comedians-at-society-of.html

Drew Friedman's small originals reproduce well at poster size. Here's Buddy Hackett all blown up.

The cash bar upstairs was doing a brisk business at the time this photo was taken downstairs.

Drew Friedman, Jack Gilford, 2007

Drew Friedman, The Marx Brothers
A Night at the Opera
Limited edition print, 2012

Drew Friedman, Al Lewis, Original artwork for Old Jewish Comedians

Drew Friedman, Zeppo & Gummo Marx, 2007

Drew Friedman, Henny Youngman, 2007
Henny Youngman, Preliminary pencil artwork

Drew Friedman, Mel Blanc
Original back cover art to Even More Old Jewish Comedians

Drew Friedman, Vernon Dent and the Three Stooges
Original artwork for a limited edition print, 2009

Drew Friedman, Groucho Marx
Book cover art for Raised Eyebrows by Steve Stoliar, 2010

Drew Friedman, Zero Mostel & Gene Wilder
DVD cover art for "The Producers" (2013)

Drew Friedman, Woody Allen
Original artwork for "The Power Geezers"
The New York Observer, 2005

Drew Friedman, Jack Benny, 2007
Jack Benny, Preliminary pencil artwork

Drew Friedman, Soupy Sales, 2007

Drew Friedman, Jackie Mason, 2007

Drew Friedman, Mel Brooks, 2007

Drew Friedman, Jerry Stiller

Drew Friedman, Zero Mostel, 2007

Drew Friedman, Joe E. Ross, 2007
Joe E. Ross, Preliminary pencil artwork

Drew Friedman, Howard Morris

Drew Friedman, Victor Borge
Victor Borge, Preliminary pencil artwork

Drew Friedman, The One... the Only...Groucho!
Limited edition print no. 3/10, 2011

Drew Friedman, Larry Storch, 2007
Larry Storch, Preliminary pencil artwork

Drew Friedman, Phyllis Diller, 2007

Drew Friedman, The Marx Bros.,
Original artwork for Old Jewish Comedians, 2005
Groucho Marx
Preliminary pencil artwork for Old Jewish Comedians

Note:  Earlier blog posts about Drew Friedman may be seen here.

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