Saturday, February 15, 2025

Three Old Clippings

Our good friend Joel Jacobus is perennially occupied with the pursuit of Charles Addams memorabilia but he occasionally passes along to us other cartoonist material that is less altogether ooky. Today we have three clippings about newspaper cartoonists who were popular in the 1940's. He writes:
Anyway, there are three old newspaper clippings (one of them is dated March 27, 1949 and I suspect the other two are of a similar time period) about newspaper cartoonists Cliff Berryman (Pulitzer Prize winner and creator of the teddy bear), Ding Darling (also a Pulitzer Prize winner), and Jorge Delano. I suspect that there was once a fourth clipping about Charles Addams that has since been absorbed into the collection, leaving these three clippings, unloved, in a dark and lonesome box.
Unloved? We can't have that.

Clifford K. Berryman
Star Tribune (Minneapolis), March 27, 1949, p. 32

Ding Darling
Star Tribune (Minneapolis), May 20, 1945, p. 12

Jorge Delano
The Minneapolis Star, August 4, 1945, p. 14



Note:  My thanks to Joel Jacobus, of course, for all the new old information.




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Friday, February 14, 2025

How Do You Like Your Portraits, Ernest?

Contributor David from Manhattan writes:


The recent essay by Adam Gopnik, "Subject and Object," is a careful dissection of  the famous and controversial 1950 New Yorker profile by Lillian Ross, "How Do You Like It Now, Gentlemen?" illustrated, one forgets, with a tiny pen & ink drawing of [Ernest] Hemingway by Reginald Marsh. 

Ernest Hemingway
Reginald Marsh
The New Yorker, May 13, 1950, p. 36


The long Ross Profile described her encounter with the famous author as he roamed Manhattan with Miss Ross in tow. Merely by quoting him at length (accurately as it turns out), and reporting how he moved through the day, the Hemingway in this profile comes across as a clown and a sad parody of himself. It hasn't been forgotten, as Gopnik makes clear. Published in time for the 100th anniversary issue of The New Yorker, the essay features a full-page color drawing by Barry Blitt, based, we are told in tiny print, on a photograph "courtesy Lillian Ross Estate."
Ernest Hemingway and Lillian Ross
Barry Blitt
The New Yorker, February 17 & 24, 2025, p. 151


Perhaps for that reason Blitt didn't sign his drawing, though a proper credit line appears beneath it. The drawing is not especially funny, something rarely said about a Blitt drawing. And to make things more interesting, in-between the Gopnik piece and Ross's original profile, she published "Hemingway Told Me Things" in the May 24, 1999 issue, about his letters and warm advice to her. This piece is illustrated with a caricature by Edward Sorel. 
Lillian Ross and Ernest Hemingway
Edward Sorel
The New Yorker, May 24, 1999, p. 71


In 1999 Miss Ross wished to present Hemingway in a far more generous light than the 1950 piece, but forty-nine years is a long time to wait before applying damage control. Fortunately, Sorel, quietly ignoring Ross's good cheer, royally allowed himself an artist's fun with a famous author full of himself, and a still rising journalist not quite sure of what she was in for. The small background image of a photographer in the oval mirror with his flash, even reduced on the magazine page, is a masterful touch in a drawing far more elegant, accurate and funny than the Ernest in the Gopnik piece, though in fairness to Blitt, his Hemingway is clearly intended to be more illustration than target. It's unlikely that Sorel's drawing wasn't lodged in Blitt's memory; there was no reason to compete. But both artists are certainly on firmer ground than Reginald Marsh. His portrait of Ernest was left out, unfairly I think, when Simon & Schuster in 1961 reprinted the Ross profile in a very attractive clothbound 65-page book and retitled Portrait of Hemingway, the year of the author's death.
Portrait of Hemingway by Lillian Ross

* * *

With an illustration by Reginald Marsh and a cartoon by Barney Tobey

With an illustration by Edward Sorel

With a header by Timo Kuilder and an illustration by Barry Blitt


Note:  My thanks to David from Manhattan for surprising me with today's piece. This is his sixty-sixth contribution to Attempted Bloggery.


* * *

"Notice the little ruffle, which gives it that feminine touch."
Barney Tobey
The New Yorker, May 13, 1950, p. 37


* * *


The Critics
Timo Kuilder
The New Yorker, 
February 17 & 24, 2025, p. 150








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Thursday, February 13, 2025

Georg Jensen Brooch #344

I purchased a sterling silver brooch by Georg Jensen on eBay last year, a gift for my valentine. It is design #344 and not especially common.




Design #344 with the post-1945 Georg Jensen hallmark


Georg Jensen
eBay listing ended October 20, 2024

Georg Jensen
eBay item description


Georg Jensen
eBay bid history
One bid with five seconds remaining. Your blogger hard at work for the sake of romance.













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Monday, February 10, 2025

Edward Sorel and Bruce McCall at "Covering The New Yorker"

"Covering The New Yorker," the exhibition now hanging at L'Alliance New York, spans some three decades of original New Yorker cover art. Edward Sorel and Bruce McCall are represented by two covers each. All works in the show are loaned by the artists or their estates unless other wise noted.

Crush Hour
Edward Sorel
The New Yorker, 
January 31, 1994

Sorel's I Babel, from the issue of October 2, 1995, includes a depiction of the Alliance Française at the lower left. Now renamed L'Alliance New York, it is the institution hosting this show.
I Babel
Edward Sorel
The New Yorker, October 2, 1995



Bruce McCall's 2014 cover turns the tables on the horse carriages of Central Park.
The Cart Before the Horses
Bruce McCall
The New Yorker, April 28, 2014


McCall's Lost Times Square appears in the show courtesy of David Remnick and Esther Fein.
Lost Times Square
Bruce McCall
The New Yorker, May 31, 1999















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My Entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #932

In The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #932 from the issue of February 10, 2025, two zebras are observed by a lion crouching in the grass. One zebra speaks. The drawing is by Lonnie Millsap.

"I'll go get help. You look for a snake in the grass."








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Saturday, February 8, 2025

My Copy of The Alphabet From A to Y With Bonux Letter Z! by Steve Martin and Roz Chast

Well, it's my copy now. This copy of Steve Martin and Roz Chast's The Alphabet From A to Y With Bonus Letter Z! (2007) signed by both authors showed up on eBay three months back priced at $49, which is about half the usual ask. The seller's first photo emphasizes Martin's signature, which would be the hardest to obtain individually.


I have not seen any of these twice-signed copies personalized.

The closeup photo of Martin's signature is out of focus and adds nothing: 

Chast signs with a finer pen. She gets the soft focus treatment as well.


Maybe the seller understands instinctively that you can't charge market prices without taking sharp photos.


From here on in only the pages with couplets are in focus:


And it just gets worse:


And worse:


I mean, I couldn't blur photos this consistently if I wanted to:

Great Scott! Was the seller blindfolded?

Steve Martin and Roz Chast
eBay listing ended November 6, 2024

Steve Martin and Roz Chast
eBay item description



Steve Martin and Roz Chast
eBay bid history
One bid. Your blogger shows his stuff.







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Friday, February 7, 2025

Barbara Shermund at "Drawn From The New Yorker: A Centennial Celebration"

As one enters the New York townhouse which the Society of Illustrators calls home, one immediately encounters a striking art deco drawing by pioneering cartoonist Barbara Shermund. This looks to have once had a scathingly clever caption, but in the Society's own collection it bears only the descriptive title Formally Dressed Sophisticates With Long Cigarette Holders. Although it did not appear in The New Yorker and is not a part of the current show, "Drawn From The New Yorker: A Centennial Celebration," it fits right in and sets the festive mood.

Formally Dressed Sophisticates With Long Cigarette Holders
Barbara Shermund

The exhibition is curated by New Yorker cartoonist Liza Donnelly. Shermund's nine-panel gem is from the collection of Donnelly and her husband, fellow cartoonist Michael Maslin. It was published in 1928 but seems almost contemporary in its point of view.
"You're a very intelligent little woman, my dear!"
Barbara Shermund
Original art
The New Yorker, May 19, 1928

The exclamation point pencilled on the original art does not appear in the published cartoon, where less emphasis is generally taken to be more. The magazine's creative layout displays the sequential art to maximal effect.
Finally, a 1939 New Yorker cover shows a woman looking into the oval mirror on her vanity. Long ago the art was framed with a pretend oval vanity mirror, an unfortunate choice.
Barbara Shermund
Original art
The New Yorker, March 18, 1939


I do like the fact that Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins: The Life and Art of Barbara Shermund, Caitlin McGurk's 2024 monograph on the artist, shows the preliminary art side by side with the published cover. But what I don't like is the way the bottom of the published art was cropped, eliminating an elbow, makeup, and part of the artist's signature.
From Caitlin McGurk's Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins:  The Life and Art of Barbara Shermund, 2024, p. 49



So here's the full magazine cover, including the strap on the left, as published. Really, am I asking too much? Don't answer that.

Barbara Shermund
The New Yorker, March 18,1939


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