My Entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #925

In The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #925 from the issue of December 9, 2024, we see a museum gallery tour coming upon an artist painting a picture hanging on the wall. The tour leader speaks. The drawing is by Liam Francis Walsh.

"And here we have our local art critic."

These captions were strictly color by number:

"The collection is getting modernized."
"At least we got him to stop using a roller."
"He paints what he sees."
"This is the new, calmer climate change activism."
"He's a good artist but has no imagination."
"He donated it in perpetuity."

December 23, 2024 Update:  The Finalists

January 11, 2025 Update:  I voted for the caption from Joplin.

January 19, 2025 Update:  The Winner

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The CartoonStock Cartoon Caption Contest No. 185

In the CartoonStock Caption Contest number 185, two upright fish visit an art gallery. The exhibition consists of various images of fish hooks.

The rules of the monthly cash prize contest have not changed (and neither has my description of them): Five dollars buys up to three entries. Real cash prizes are $500 for first place and $100 for each of five runners up. As of this writing, I've put $150 into the first thirty pay-to-play contests and this thirty-first challenge brings my total cash outlay up to $155. Having achieved runner-up status with two previous entries, I've collected $200 from CartoonStock, so I'm still playing with the house's money, thank goodness. In fact, so few contestants enter that the odds may generally be considered favorable even for us less-gifted caption writers. My three entries are shown below, above the break. The cartoonist is Chris Gural.

"The artist is trying to bait us."
"The artist died researching his next painting."
"Great art is supposed to make you uncomfortable."
* * *
"Let's break for a snack."
"Sure it's provocative, but is it art?"

October 20, 2024 Update:  Both Lawrence Wood and the cartoonist Gural chose my third caption for their top ten, but that still wasn't enough to reach the winner's circle.

The Judges Deliberate

November 2, 2024 Update:  The Winner

Lawrence Wood commented:

https://www.cartoonstock.com/blog/fish-lures-in-museum-caption-contest-commentary-with-lawrence-wood/

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My Entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #894

A couple of clowns take in the art gallery scene in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #894 from the issue of April 22 & 29, 2024. My caption is shown below. The drawing is by Benjamin Schwartz.

"He's no Emmett Kelly."

May 12, 2024 Update:  The Finalists

May 15, 2024 Update:  I voted for the caption from Camarillo.

May 25, 2024 Update:  The Winner

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Fear of the Surreal: Richard Taylor Preliminary New Yorker Cover Art

The website of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, lists a watercolor by Richard Taylor. It is described as a New Yorker magazine cover from 1937. That is very nearly correct. As the handwritten magazine logo suggests, this is actually, in publishing parlance, a rough. Taylor projected a September 1937 publication date, but the finished art was actually to run on the cover of the January 9 issue for that year.

https://www.albrightknox.org/artworks/rca1939113-art-gallery-new-yorker-magazine-cover

The cover depicts a woman entering an art gallery and encountering powerful surrealist art. She reacts quite viscerally to the transgressive art on display, experiencing shock, or revulsion, or fear.

Taylor made some important changes between the rough and the finish. He had the disturbing art fill more space on the gallery wall, making the paintings seem more overwhelming to the diminutive woman. Also, Taylor added some benign figures to the foreground. Significantly, they are experiencing the grotesque art calmly, with no apparent squeamishness or sensitivity. Their emotional indifference to the distressing images they regard on the wall stands in contrast to the woman's strong gut reaction.

Richard Taylor
The New Yorker, January 9, 1939

Richard Taylor
Preliminary art
The New Yorker, January 9, 1939
The Albright-Know Art Gallery
Buffalo, New York

Note:  This is the first work of preliminary New Yorker art by Richard Taylor I have been able to show on the blog. Readers with other Taylor roughs or finishes are urged to share them here.

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New to the Gallery: Garrett Price Original New Yorker Cover Art

Garrett Price came into his own this week, at least in terms of the art market. An original cover illustration for The New Yorker from the summer of 1951 sold for a healthy $6120 at Bonhams New York. Whether that is or isn't a record price for the artist I don't know, but it is impressive.

Garrett Price
Original art
The New Yorker,  August 11, 1951

And what a cover illustration it is! Price is a master at depicting different artistic genres, but it is the cultural clash he has depicted here that resonates. The art we choose to surround ourselves with defines the tastes we aspire to and even to some extent the people we aspire to be. The surrealist painting being carried into a gallery full of representational works reminds us of a broad swath of the public's discomfort with the advent of modern art in America since the Armory Show of 1913. Dislike and even derision of modernism is widespread to this day.

The condition report gives the work high marks, noting that "the medium appears well preserved and the pigments have maintained their brilliance overall." Have they? To my eye, the reds in the original have faded considerably, leaving it with a bluish cast. Compare the colors of the published cover:

Garrett Price
The New Yorker,  August 11, 1951

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1951-08-11/flipbook/CV1/

The hammer price

The sale price, including buyer's premium

Note:  Well, now that I've gone and made a claim I can't verify, I suppose I should ask publicly whether this is indeed an auction record for Garrett Price. Anybody want to field that?

Images of original art by Garrett Price are welcome here on the blog. Even abstract works of his will be graciously accepted, despite the mumblings of the masses.

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