A display of rejected New Yorker cover concept art is currently on view at L'Alliance New York, a part of the exhibition "Covering The New Yorker."
The assemblage of prints of rejected sketches is pinned to a bulletin board, like the card describing them:
Oddly, one of the rejected sketches shown there is this very week's cover by Till Lauer. It depicts the glow of wildfires in California. A notation is dated 1/15/25 and bears an okay as well as the name of the magazine's editor David [Remnick], likely in the hand of the art editor Françoise Mouly:
It was not published on the cover of the January 20 issue, hence its status in this show as a rejected cover. It does appear on the January 27 issue, a one week layover—surely not the worst rejection ever:
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Flames and Shadows
Till Lauer
The New Yorker, January 27, 2025 |
The Lauer cover initially was rejected in favor of Barry Blitt's inauguration cover Two's a Crowd. Both were timely enough to have appeared that same week. Although January 20 is the date of the presidential swearing in, the issue is released one full week ahead of the publication date and The New Yorker's editors wanted the Blitt cover out a full week ahead of the event—the cover itself was even released a few days early. There are, of course, some risks inherent in anticipating real-world events. The illustration quite naturally foresaw an outdoor ceremony, which turned out not to be the case because of extreme cold. It also shows Donald Trump's hand resting on the bible. Who knew?
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Two's a Crowd
Barry Blitt
The New Yorker, January 20, 2025 |
Curiously, Blitt's cover recalls his own twin-scenarios cover of eight years earlier. Both images show Trump at his swearing in accompanied—or superseded—by extremely powerful and wealthy men with their own agendas.
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Significant Others
Barry Blitt
The New Yorker, October 31, 2016 |
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