Decades ago, The New Yorker magazine's office basement was the repository of neglected or forgotten art, including unclaimed or unused spot drawings, which then as now went largely underappreciated. When this basement area flooded, cover artist Arthur Getz went down into it to check on the state of his spot drawings which had been held in storage. What he unexpectedly came away with was an otherwise unwanted copper printing plate of an unpublished cover by Rea Irvin, the magazine's very first cover artist and its initial art supervisor, later art director. It dates sometime from the Second World War—there is no issue date on the plate—and it depicts Japan's emperor Hirohito confronted with his country's looming defeat about to commit harakiri, or seppuku.
This plate must be one of four color separations used in the four-color printing process. Below the score lines the black or key plate is indicated. The other three plates apparently do not survive. The fact that Irvin's art went through the color separation process but was "abandoned," in Getz's words—or not published—indicate that this cover was considered and "killed" by the editorial staff. It is an unusual political cover concept for The New Yorker, although such covers did occasionally appear under Irvin's by-line during the war.
Harakiri, or hara-kiri as it was usually hyphenated then, was a form of Japanese ritual suicide that many Americans learned about at the onset of the war. Less than a month after Pearl Harbor, a New Yorker cartoon by Alain (Daniel Brustlein) depicts a journalist struggling with the spelling of the unfamiliar term.
Getz's handwritten description of the plate uses quotation marks, indicating that he may have copied some of his information, perhaps from a water-damaged source. He too trips over the spelling of harakiri.
Allied fantasies of having the war end abruptly aided by ritual suicide of the Axis leaders must have been commonplace. Here there are some five other figures poised to kill themselves below Hirohito. It's hard to discern their features on the plate, but they could be Mussolini (on the left side of the plate wearing a fez), Tojo (below him), and Hitler (on the right of the plate). Kneeling behind the ostensible Hitler is a European figure in a top hat and there is a smaller figure grasping a knife hilt in the corner below him.
With the hindsight of history, we know Irvin's vision was somewhat off the mark. Mussolini was executed by elements of the Italian resistance in 1945 while he was trying to flee the country. Hitler killed himself in Berlin by taking cyanide two days thereafter. Emperor Hirohito did not commit harakiri. He remained emperor of Japan after the war and died in 1989.
The Axis leaders could never have congregated, let alone coordinated a global military campaign, but it was not unusual for them to be depicted together in Allied propaganda to emphasize the commonality of the threat they posed. In the pages of The New Yorker just weeks after Pearl Harbor, Irvin depicted Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini as a single three-headed sea serpent jointly attacking an American island military base.
Note: My sincere thanks to Sarah Getz for sharing her father's unique copper printing plate and its history. I would appreciate hearing from anyone who can add further details to the story of this killed cover. I would especially like to see the original art, if anyone happens to know its whereabouts.
There must also be more to the story of the flood in The New Yorker's basement. When was it? What else may have been lost? Or recovered? If you know, do tell.
Michael Maslin writes about founding editor Harold Ross's policy of not putting "specific people" on the covers of The New Yorker here. It is interesting that it was always Rea Irvin who seemed to have persuaded Ross to make an exception to this rule and that world leaders during World War II were always the subject of these covers. Fascinating stuff, and a must for those who might think The New Yorker's covers were always driven by headlines the way they frequently are today.
I haven't shown all that much original Irvin art here these nine years, but more would certainly make a welcome subject for a post or two. So please send images of whatever you may have. Also, I'm always looking to put more examples of "killed" New Yorker art on the blog, that is, artwork including cartoons and covers that were purchased by the magazine but never published. There's usually a story there, though not always anyone to tell it.
This is the fifth New Yorker copper printing plate to appear here on the blog, the only one featuring a cover image and a killed one at that. I see no reason to stop here, except that I don't know of any further examples. Please help me out by sending along images of vintage New Yorker printing plates and by all means tell me what you know about them.
Okay, people, you have your assignments. Now get to work...
Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:
Rea Irvin
Copper Printing Plates
Arthur Getz
Killed New Yorker Art
World War II
Attempted Bloggery's Waterlogged Index
03324
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| Rea Irvin Copper printing plate "Killed" World War II-era New Yorker cover
Photo by Sarah Getz
|
This plate must be one of four color separations used in the four-color printing process. Below the score lines the black or key plate is indicated. The other three plates apparently do not survive. The fact that Irvin's art went through the color separation process but was "abandoned," in Getz's words—or not published—indicate that this cover was considered and "killed" by the editorial staff. It is an unusual political cover concept for The New Yorker, although such covers did occasionally appear under Irvin's by-line during the war.
 |
| Rea Irvin Copper printing plate showing score lines "Killed" World War II-era New Yorker cover
Photo by Sarah Getz
|
Harakiri, or hara-kiri as it was usually hyphenated then, was a form of Japanese ritual suicide that many Americans learned about at the onset of the war. Less than a month after Pearl Harbor, a New Yorker cartoon by Alain (Daniel Brustlein) depicts a journalist struggling with the spelling of the unfamiliar term.
 |
| Alain (Daniel Brustlein) The New Yorker, January 3, 1942, page 19 |
Getz's handwritten description of the plate uses quotation marks, indicating that he may have copied some of his information, perhaps from a water-damaged source. He too trips over the spelling of harakiri.
 |
Arthur Getz's handwritten documentation of the Rea Irvin plate
Photo by Sarah Getz
|
 |
| Rea Irvin Copper printing plate "Killed" World War II-era New Yorker cover
Photo by Sarah Getz
|
With the hindsight of history, we know Irvin's vision was somewhat off the mark. Mussolini was executed by elements of the Italian resistance in 1945 while he was trying to flee the country. Hitler killed himself in Berlin by taking cyanide two days thereafter. Emperor Hirohito did not commit harakiri. He remained emperor of Japan after the war and died in 1989.
The Axis leaders could never have congregated, let alone coordinated a global military campaign, but it was not unusual for them to be depicted together in Allied propaganda to emphasize the commonality of the threat they posed. In the pages of The New Yorker just weeks after Pearl Harbor, Irvin depicted Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini as a single three-headed sea serpent jointly attacking an American island military base.
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| Tell It to the Marines Rea Irvin The New Yorker, December 27, 1941, page 21 |
Finally, flipping the plate image horizontally gives some idea of what the published cover image might have looked like.
 |
Rea Irvin
Reverse image copper printing plate
"Killed" World War II-era New Yorker cover
Photo by Sarah Getz, flipped
|
Note: My sincere thanks to Sarah Getz for sharing her father's unique copper printing plate and its history. I would appreciate hearing from anyone who can add further details to the story of this killed cover. I would especially like to see the original art, if anyone happens to know its whereabouts.
There must also be more to the story of the flood in The New Yorker's basement. When was it? What else may have been lost? Or recovered? If you know, do tell.
Michael Maslin writes about founding editor Harold Ross's policy of not putting "specific people" on the covers of The New Yorker here. It is interesting that it was always Rea Irvin who seemed to have persuaded Ross to make an exception to this rule and that world leaders during World War II were always the subject of these covers. Fascinating stuff, and a must for those who might think The New Yorker's covers were always driven by headlines the way they frequently are today.
I haven't shown all that much original Irvin art here these nine years, but more would certainly make a welcome subject for a post or two. So please send images of whatever you may have. Also, I'm always looking to put more examples of "killed" New Yorker art on the blog, that is, artwork including cartoons and covers that were purchased by the magazine but never published. There's usually a story there, though not always anyone to tell it.
This is the fifth New Yorker copper printing plate to appear here on the blog, the only one featuring a cover image and a killed one at that. I see no reason to stop here, except that I don't know of any further examples. Please help me out by sending along images of vintage New Yorker printing plates and by all means tell me what you know about them.
Okay, people, you have your assignments. Now get to work...
Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:
Rea Irvin
Copper Printing Plates
Arthur Getz
Killed New Yorker Art
World War II
Attempted Bloggery's Waterlogged Index
03324
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