Out of the personal collection of Mary Tyler Moore comes an Al Hirschfeld caricature of three principals from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." They are Mary Tyler Moore as Mary Richards, Ed Asner as Lou Grant, and Ted Knight as Ted Baxter. The original art was sold yesterday at Doyle New York.
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| Al Hirschfeld's signature |
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| Al Hirschfeld Doyle New York listing accessed May 31, 2025, four days before the sale |
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| Al Hirschfeld |
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| Peter Arno |
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| The Kensico Cemetery |
Note: See Peter Arno's grave here.
See Al Hirschfeld's grave here.
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Yesterday, items from the estate of Chita Rivera were sold at auction by Bonhams, New York. One of the mementos of her storied theater career was Al Hirschfeld's illustration of her, Jerry Orbach, and Gwen Verdon in the original Broadway production of "Chicago." Hirschfeld made the drawing while Bob Fosse's show was still out of town in Philadelphia. It was published in the Times on June 8, 1975 after the Broadway opening. The Hirschfeld illustration has seven Ninas, but I can locate only six.
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The presale estimate was $4,000 to $6,000 dollars. Online bidding was already at $7,500 fifteen hours before the sale ended.
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| Al Hirschfeld Bonhams All That Jazz: The Estate of Chita Rivera listing accessed November 25, 2024 |
Sold!
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| [End of auction] |
Chicago
Philadelphia Dress Rehearsal 1975
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| Still 9:26 |
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Something familiar: the 1963 book version of the Broadway musical "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum."
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| A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum AbeBooks listing accessed July 1, 2024 |
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| A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum AbeBooks item description |
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Tony Azito (1948-1995) became famous seemingly overnight playing the Police Sergeant in Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival production of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance." The 1887 comic opera was presented at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park in the summer of 1980 with a nontraditional staging and pop score. Azito's over-the-top performance was very athletic, more madcap than anything in the D'Oyly Carte tradition. The show also starred Linda Ronstadt, Rex Smith, Kevin Kline, and George Rose. It was a hit and was later restaged for Broadway. Ultimately it was made into a movie released in 1983.
Theater caricaturist Al Hirschfeld covered the original Shakespeare in the Park production for the New York Times. On July 16, Bradford's Auction Gallery of Sun City, Arizona, sold a preliminary sketch of Azito in costume, one of the six characters in the finished drawing, and the smallest. Hirschfeld roughs don't come to the market very often. This one gives an insight into his working process.
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| Al Hirschfeld Bradford's Auction Gallery, July 16, 2023 |
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| https://www.alhirschfeldfoundation.org/piece/pirates-penzance-2 |
Note: There are five Ninas. Make sure you count them all.
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Note: My thanks to Tom Bloom for treating us to his nineteenth contribution here.
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I’m probably late to the party but here’s another nice self-portrait of Hirschfeld. His first book Manhattan Oases (1932), unfortunately not in the best condition. Also something you don’t see often. A color insert in the May 3, 1943 issue of The Hollywood Reporter promoting the MGM musical “Cabin in the Sky” featuring Lena Horne and Duke Ellington.
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| Al Hirschfeld "Cabin in the Sky" (1943) |
Note: I am grateful to Scott Burns for sharing scans of his wonderful Hirschfeld book. There's nothing like the posts of the last few days to convince me that I should have devoted some of the 1980s to hunting down Hirschfeld with old books for signing. But I was busy then, as I recall, and that kind of advance planning is really not my way, even today. For the record, I also think the "Cabin in the Sky" art is fantastic and my thanks extend to that as well.
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Harlem As Seen By Hirschfeld was first published in 1941 with art by Al Hirschfeld and text by William Saroyan. More than half a century later, collagist Stephen Kroninger had Hirschfeld sign his copy of the book. Hirschfeld not only signed, dated, and dedicated the book to Stephen, he sketched a large self-portrait as well. In short, the book has everything but a Nina.
Note: My friend Stephen Kroninger has outdone himself once again, photographing a book personalized for him by one of the 20th century's greatest caricaturists. This is Stephen's forty-second contribution to Attempted Bloggery. If he keeps this up, there won't be much left for me to do.
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Caricaturist Al Hirschfeld's The World of Hirschfeld was published in 1970. On July 18, 1998, illustrator Stephen Kroninger brought him a copy of the book to sign. Hirschfeld more than complied. He signed and drew two of his unmistakeable hands pointing from the dedication to the signature and from the signature to the date, giving a nice flow to the half-title page.
Note: Once again my thanks and appreciation to Stephen Kroninger who, when he's not creating masterful collages, photographs books and pictures from his collection and sends them to me to mull over on the blog. This is his forty-first contribution to Attempted Bloggery.
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Al Hirschfeld drew big and he sent his big theater caricatures to the New York Times in big envelopes. He addressed such envelopes to Arts & Leisure art director Andrea Stevens on the third floor of the Times building. He affixed a return address label and added a stylized self-portrait.
Illustrator Stephen Kroninger, who himself did work for the Times, has one such envelope framed on his wall and he provided the photographs seen here. He writes:
I didn't work with her [Stevens]. The AD I did work with wanted a piece of mine so I traded it to her for the Hirschfeld envelope. Actually had to get the first replaced. It was in my studio and the assistant I had cut it up to mail artwork to someone. The AD was nice and gave me the one you see here to replace it.
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