The 1945 Eustace Tilley Printing Plates: "Covering The New Yorker"

The exhibition "Covering The New Yorker" is currently on view at L'Alliance New York. The show is curated by art editor Françoise Mouly and co-curated by Rodolphe Lachat in celebration of the magazine's centennial. The display focuses on original cover art that has appeared over the past thirty years under this art editor's tenure, as the signage at the entrance makes clear. Still, there are some surprises in store, including the copper plates used to print color separations of the cover of the 1945 anniversary issue. 

Icon

Christoph Niemann

Eustace Tilley:  The Face of The New Yorker

 04865

Hirohito's Harakiri: Rea Irvin Killed New Yorker Cover Art Printing Plate

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 What he unexpectedly came away with was an otherwise unwanted copper printing plate of an unpublished cover by Rea Irvin, the magazine's very first cover artist and its initial art supervisor, later art director.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.

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

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1942-01-03/flipbook/018/

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

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.

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.

Tell It to the Marines
Rea Irvin
The New Yorker, December 27, 1941, page 21

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1941-12-27/flipbook/020/

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...


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Rea Irvin

Copper Printing Plates

Arthur Getz

Killed New Yorker Art

World War II

Attempted Bloggery's Waterlogged Index

03324

A Charles Addams Jungle Snake Cartoon Printing Plate

Joel Jacobus, devotee of cartoonist Charles Addams and cataloguer of divers Addamsiana, today adds to our knowledge of rarities so obscure that the creator of the Addams Family himself may never have seen them. Joel now reports the existence of a third copper printing plate bearing the reverse image of an Addams cartoon published in the New Yorker. Dating from the issue of October 16, 1948, the cartoon depicts a jungle scene with two Anglo men seated outside of a hut threatened by dangerous-looking tropical snakes. The man who is apparently the host, drink in hand, says to his squeamish guest, "Bothered me a bit too, at first, until I discovered they were real."

"Bothered me a bit too, at first, until I discovered they were real."

Charles Addams

Copper printing plate

The New Yorker, October 16, 1948, page 29

The plate was sold just last month on eBay—where else? Joel notes that "the plate is quite worn and was displayed in a printmaker's house in New York for years." Ever the scholar, he points out that the cartoon was reproduced in the classic 1950 Addams collection Monster Rally on page 69, where it was certainly printed with a different plate.

There has never been a real market for these printing plates, at least until very recently. It can't be an accident that three of the very few plates which survived and made their way to eBay were of Addams cartoons, each individually spared destruction in the printing plant by enterprising workers who were also, one assumes, fans. (There is, as we have had occasion to note, a surviving Barney Tobey cartoon printing plate as well.) That's all that's come to light so far after 95 years of New Yorker cartoons although, to be sure, such plates are no longer used in the process of printing the magazine.

Here's the rest of the eBay sale:

Charles Addams
eBay Listing Ended June 25, 2020

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Charles-Addams-Drawing-Copper-Engraving-The-New-Yorker-VTG-/392843402056?hash=item5b774a9b48%3Ag%3A1okAAOSwAWJe647n&nma=true&si=WEtIFz5%252FkfY9UxP8WWeB%252FCaqeVQ%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Charles Addams
eBay Item Description

Charles Addams
eBay Bid History
One bidder places two bids; the second is for insurance.

[End of eBay Listing]

"Bothered me a bit too, at first, until I discovered they were real."
Charles Addams
The New Yorker, October 16, 1948, page 29

The plate image is here flipped horizontally into the orientation of the cartoon.

A spot drawing of passenger ship terminal and a cartoon by Charles Addams

Note:  I would like to thank Joel Jacobus for bringing this eBay sale to my attention. He continues to provide us with many insights into these rare copper plates once used to print cartoon images in the New Yorker. There are no doubt other extant printing plates corresponding to published New Yorker cartoons. I would like to hear from anyone in possession of these. (I would also like to know whether readers can identify the artist of the passenger ship terminal spot drawing.)

"Bothered me a bit too, at first, until I discovered they were real."
Charles Addams
Copper printing plate
The New Yorker, October 16, 1948, page 29

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Charles Addams

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Snakes

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New Yorker Cartoon Copper Printing Plates

Joel Jacobus, cataloguer and chronicler of all things Addams, writes of three recent eBay sales of copper plates used in the printing process for cartoons. The first sale was in May of 2019. An eBay seller located in Illinois offered a Charles Addams copper printing plate featuring the reverse image of a full page cartoon. Joel noted that a plate such as this is apparently quite rarely if ever seen on the market. He writes, "The seller said that she had been to an estate sale in April of someone who work[ed] in the printing industry and that they had a lot of printing plates. She had bought a few to see if anyone was interested in them. There were very few bids on the Addams plate..." 

Charles Addams copper printing plate

Photo courtesy of Joel Jacobus

Joel goes on, "This copper printing plate is 7.25 x 10.5”. The drawing shows explorers bushwhacking through the jungle as they come upon a giant maze. It appears in Addams’ last book Creature Comforts. The website Artnet, states that the drawing is from 1980 and that the original was sold at auction on May 10, 2003. Since it had no caption, the auction gallery selling it listed it in their brochure as Intrepid Explorers About To Enter A Maze.”

Artnet

http://www.artnet.com/artists/charles-addams/intrepid-explorers-about-to-enter-a-maze-JRvRfbz6rNb_RSUXd1pe3g2

Printed copy of Addams cartoon marked 36

Photo courtesy of Joel Jacobus

Charles Addams copper printing plate

Photo courtesy of Joel Jacobus

Prior to its appearance in Creature Comforts, this drawing appeared in the May 19, 1980 issue of the New Yorker. The number 36 written across the printer's proof corresponds to its page number in the New Yorker.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1738241852/drawing-life-with-george-booth/description

Joel continues, "Then a month later another Charles Addams printing plate was offered by a different seller and it had a lot of interested bidders and sold for six times" the price of the first one. "Why? No idea. Strange that I’ve never seen one for sale before and then suddenly two show up within a month of each other. Perhaps they came from the same estate sale."

That seems likely, as the two Addams cartoons were published only six weeks apart.

The number 49 is written on the printed page above and on the back of the copper plate, below. This, we will soon see, again corresponds to the cartoon's page number in the New Yorker.

"49"
Back of Charles Addams cartoon copper printing plate

Charles Addams cartoon copper printing plate

Charles Addams
eBay Listing Ended June 13, 2019

https://www.ebay.com/itm/ADDAMS-FAMILY-Charles-Addams-Comic-PRINTERS-PLATE-Copper-/123794660799?hash=item1cd2bc9dbf%3Ag%3At4gAAOSwSZ5c-bZI&nma=true&si=YQGb25QThn5Fxe78BW8tTy6VzZY%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Charles Addams
eBay Item Description

Charles Addams
eBay Bid History
Four bidders place a remarkable six bids in the last seven seconds of the auction.

"Don't worry. They'll be out by the tenth."
Charles Addams
The New Yorker, April 7, 1980, page 49

https://archives.newyorker.com/?i=1980-04-07#folio=048

Joel notes that "Each plate at the estate sale was wrapped in several layers of plain white paper and had a magazine page, showing the image from the plate, taped to the wrapping paper. The page looks like an actual page from the magazine, same type of paper and it’s printed on both sides, so it probably isn’t a printer’s proof." That's an interesting observation. If it isn't a printer's proof, why did someone go to the trouble of trimming off the caption? The caption, of course, was not part of the plate and had to be set in type separately.

A third plate sold on eBay, much smaller, is by New Yorker cartoonist Barney Tobey.

"31"

Barney Tobey cartoon copper printing plate

Detail of Barney Tobey cartoon copper printing plate

"31"

Back of Barney Tobey cartoon copper printing plate

Barney Tobey
eBay Listing Ended June 5, 2019

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-SIGNED-B-TOBEY-BRIDE-CARTOON-METAL-COPPER-PRINT-PLATE-NEW-YORKER-/173916966852?hash=item287e424fc4%3Ag%3AFhQAAOSwi5Nc5Bc-&nma=true&si=YQGb25QThn5Fxe78BW8tTy6VzZY%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Barney Tobey
eBay Item Description

Barney Tobey
eBay Bid History
One early bid

Printed copy of Tobey cartoon marked for page 31

Photo courtesy of Joel Jacobus

Barney Tobey cartoon copper printing plate

Photo courtesy of Joel Jacobus

"I want her first marriage to be a beautiful one."
Barney Tobey
The New Yorker, June 2, 1980, page 31

https://archives.newyorker.com/?i=1980-06-02#folio=030

Finally, Joel asks, "Is the entire printing run of the New Yorker magazine done in one printing plant? If so, does that mean that this is the only copper plate for this Addams image? Or, if multiple printing plants around the country are used, how many printing plates might there be of this image? Of course, these questions pertain to the New Yorker printing as it was done circa 1980."


Note:  So those are very good questions. How many printing presses were needed to produce the national net press run? Were multiple copies of the copper plates produced for the published cartoons or is each unique? Over what years were these copper plates used in production? Does anyone know of other cartoon printing plates?

I want to thank Joel Jacobus for introducing me to this brand new subject. Who knew?


Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Charles Addams

Barney Tobey

The New Yorker

Joel Jacobus

Attempted Bloggery's Mazelike Index

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