Constantin Alajálov: The Graduate Looks to His Future

The idea that new college graduates might face limited employment prospects has been around for quite a while. We know that such concerns become especially prominent in times of economic uncertainty such as the current moment. Constantin Alajálov's New Yorker cover art for the issue of June 22, 1935, was published in the midst of the Great Depression.

Constantin Alajálov
Full original art
The New Yorker, June 22, 1935

The graduate, we see, faces a variety of job possibilities, the ones on the left being fantasies of prosperity while the ones on the right suggest a workaday hustle to which the college degree might not contribute very much.

Constantin Alajálov
Original art
The New Yorker, June 22, 1935

Alajálov's original was sold in the Illustration Art sale at Swann Auction Galleries in December.

Constantin Alajálov
Swann Auction Galleries Illustration Art sale of December 4, 2025

https://www.swanngalleries.com/auction-lot/new-yorker-constantin-alajalov-1900-1987-the-grad_067c029639

Constantin Alajálov
Swann Auction Galleries Illustration Art sale item description

A comparison of the art with the published cover leads to one very obvious observation: the original has no color.

Constantin Alajálov
Original art
The New Yorker, June 22, 1935

Constantin Alajálov
The New Yorker, June 22, 1935

This raises one of two possibilities: either all the color has faded over the past ninety years or Alajálov added the color during the magazine's color separation process.

Have we seen this before? Twelve years ago I posted another Alajálov cover, this one showing a dog's family tree from 1938, with what Bonhams described as its study. I followed the auction house's lead here, but the cover and its supposed preliminary art are close to identical except for the matter of color.

Constantin Alajálov
The New Yorker, February 12, 1938

Constantin Alajálov
Preliminary art [?]
The New Yorker, February 12, 1938

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