Attempted Bloggery: Mary Petty

Showing posts with label Mary Petty. Show all posts

Friday, March 7, 2025

Mary Petty at "Drawn From The New Yorker: A Centennial Celebration"

Artists and their models were a frequent subject of New Yorker cartoons in years past, but not so much these days. Mary Petty's 1937 cartoon is a fine example of the genre.

"Dear no, Miss Mayberry—just the head."
Mary Petty
Print
The New Yorker, December 4, 1937, p. 28

"Dear no, Miss Mayberry—just the head."
Mary Petty
The New Yorker, December 4, 1937, p. 28

The print of a classic Petty cartoon is on view in the exhibition "Drawn From The New Yorker: A Centennial Celebration." The show is curated by Liza Donnelly and hangs at the Society of Illustrators in New York.

The real find there by Petty is her original cover art from the issue of July 18, 1942. The museum card reads, "Mary Petty drew this maid character, which she named 'Fay,' in many of her cartoons and covers. Fay became beloved by readers, and her voluminous bows[,] often seen on children in that time, were known as 'Petty bows.'"

Mary Petty
Original art
The New Yorker, July 18, 1942

What's ingenious about this wartime cover is Fay's visual transformation, through her gas mask, into a giant winged insect. The mirror that allows her to observe her own appearance enables us to see her from both front and back.

Mary Petty
The New Yorker, July 18, 1942

https://archives.newy orker.com/newyorker/1942-07-18/flipbook/CV1/

With a cartoon by Mary Petty and a spot drawing

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1937-12-04/flipbook/028/

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Note: The 1937 spot on the page opposite the Petty drawing shows a horse and carriage from above paused in the light of a Bishop's Crook street lamp. Alas, it is unsigned and the artist is, for the present, unidentified unless some sharp-eyed reader can determine otherwise.

Spot drawing
Artist Unidentified
The New Yorker, December 4, 1937, p. 29

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Wednesday, July 26, 2023

The Boston Globe: Cartoon Books of 1945

To help readers in 1945 with their holiday book buying, the Boston Globe published a number of capsule reviews on Wednesday, November 28. Subjects on the book page included "For Sportsmen," marketed to returning soldiers hoping to turn their energy to leisure activities, and "Dream House," as those same soldiers would very soon need a place to live with their growing families. Then there was "Visual Fun: Collected Cartoons Drawn for Laughter." Five current cartoon books were mentioned. Four of them collected work by New Yorker artists, something the Globe failed to note. The great war was over. It was time to sit back and have a good laugh.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/434102048/?terms=Mary%2BPetty%2BAlan%2BDunn

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Saturday, May 21, 2022

Mary Petty: The Turkish Corner

Illustrator Tom Bloom writes to share a scan capturing a fine work of original illustration art by Mary Petty. It depicts a young woman enjoying a private moment of reading surrounded by an extraordinarily rich and exotic collection of Turkish objets d'art. Petty's drawing is exquisitely detailed, with a lushness and texture that the printing process wasn't fully able to capture. This illustration, called The Turkish Corner, includes many distinct decorative patterns rendered with utter conviction. It appeared in Good-Bye, Mr. Chippendale (1944) by T. H. Robsjohn-Gibbings.

https://thecarycollection.com/products/good-bye-mr-chippendale-1944-robsjohn-gibbings-t-h

Note: My thanks to Tom Bloom for the terrific scan. This is Tom's twentieth contribution to the blog. I am one fortunate blogger.

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Friday, May 20, 2022

Mary Petty: Fay's Brush with Henry Moore

That's Mrs. Peabody's maid, Fay, having a little dust up with a Henry Moore sculpture in Mary Petty's apparently unpublished original illustration.

Many a mid-century cartoonist made fun of Moore's modern sculptures; Petty goes for the obvious gag but she shows no apparent disrespect. Rather, she has poor Fay going to impractical extremes in order to get her housework done. It's an awkward image for the usually graceful Fay; in fact all the poise resides in the Moore work. This is a study in contrasts: Fay is black-and-white, angular, off-balance, while the reclining figure is colorful, rounded, sturdy. All this might have worked as an amusing cover for The New Yorker; very likely it was submitted and even considered by the editors. Still, one can almost imagine the magazine's founding editor Harold Ross, something of a literalist, demanding to know why Fay couldn't just as easily go around the sculpture as through it.

Detail of maid and sculpture

Mary Petty's signature

Verso

The verso bears a Greek stamp and a notation. The letters at the top look tantalizingly like an O.K. The writing resembles printer's marks. Was this piece in fact published?

Tape residue is affixed to the bottom of the art. Who puts tape on a Henry Moore?

More tape residue is on the left side of the art.

Mary Petty
Chairish listing accessed March 19, 2022

https://www.chairish.com/product/2424924/mary-petty-maid-dusting-henry-moore-sculpture-signed-original-watercolor

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Wednesday, May 18, 2022

Mary Petty: These Petty Prints

In the 1940s, the American Folio Company of Westport issued lithographic prints of some of Mary Petty's wonderful New Yorker covers. The prints do not bear the New Yorker logo and are unsigned. No edition size is specified. The quality of the printing doesn't seem overly exceptional. Here are a few examples:

The blue line at the bottom of the image provides an indication of just how out of register this print is. Perhaps that's part of the reason it seems blurry in the photos.