The New Yorker at One Hundred

The New Yorker's first issue was dated February 21, 1925, exactly one hundred years ago today. Rea Irvin's inaugural cover illustration must have mystified many people who saw it at the newsstand. Today, of course, we can see it for what it is: a classic. Happy birthday to The New Yorker.

Rea Irvin
The New Yorker, February 21, 1925

 

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Looking at Gallery Art: Two Saul Steinberg Magazine Covers

One artist: Saul Steinberg. One subject: spectators looking thoughtfully at art in a gallery. Two years of publication: 1961 and 1969. Two magazines: Art in America and The New Yorker. One question: Could these two magazine covers be more different?

Saul Steinberg

Art in America, No. 2, 1961, Vol. 49, No. 2

https://www.biblio.com/book/art-america-lipman-jean/d/1446879510

"COVER:   By Saul Steinberg, adapted from a drawing in The Labyrinth for the symposium 'What Should a Museum Be?'"

The Art in America wraparound cover was not identical to the drawing as it first appeared in The Labyrinth (1960). For the symposium image, Steinberg added to the right-hand portion of the drawing. He gave the woman in the background a geometric hat and put another woman behind her, seemingly emerging from her back. He put the outline of another figure immediately behind the stout man at center. He also gave the picture on the right a three-dimensional frame thicker on the bottom than the top.

https://www.pinterest.ch/pin/344243965265568162/

Steinberg's later New Yorker cover depicts a similar setting, but with a remarkable stream of consciousness.

Saul Steinberg
 The New Yorker, October 18, 1969

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J. D. Salinger Signed New Yorker Short Stories

An eBay listing from a year ago included two copies of The New Yorker containing short stories by J. D. Salinger, each signed by the author. The stories, "Just Before the War with the Eskimos" (June 5, 1948) and "Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes" (July 14, 1951), were both later collected in Nine Stories (1953).The magazines come from the 2008 Princeton estate sale of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann.

Magazine covers by Leonard Dove, Arthur Getz, and Robert Vickery

Salinger signed both magazines "with best wishes[,]/J. D. Salinger" above the story title. 

It's an apparent coincidence that the title page of each story is decorated with a spot drawing by Abe Birnbaum.

Too bad the eBay seller wasn't a better photographer.

J. D. Salinger
eBay Listing Ended June 19, 2020

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1948-amp-1951-J-D-SALINGER-SIGNED-INSCRIBED-SHORT-STORIES-NEW-YORKER-MAGAZINES-/184325551854?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&nma=true&si=WEtIFz5%252FkfY9UxP8WWeB%252FCaqeVQ%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc

J. D. Salinger
eBay Item Description

J. D. Salinger
eBay Bid History
Only one bid in the final two minutes

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Otto Soglow: New Masses for December 1932

New Yorker cartoonist Otto Soglow (1900-1975) gives us one of the slimmest Santas in memory for the December 1932 issue of New Masses. Today Soglow is chiefly remembered as the creator of The Little King.

Otto Soglow
New Masses, December 1932

Otto Soglow
eBay Listing Retrieved July 12, 2019

https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-MASSES-VOL-8-N-5-DEC-1932-NEAR-FINE-CPUSA-MAGAZINE-OTTO-SOGLOW-COVER-ART/273809511175?hash=item3fc0519307:g:GlYAAOSw5npctlcI

Otto Soglow
eBay Item Description Retrieved July 12, 2019

https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-MASSES-VOL-8-N-5-DEC-1932-NEAR-FINE-CPUSA-MAGAZINE-OTTO-SOGLOW-COVER-ART/273809511175?hash=item3fc0519307:g:GlYAAOSw5npctlcI

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Strolling by the Farm: Barbara Shermund and Peter Arno

Cartoonists Peter Arno and Barbara Shermund occasionally found themselves covering more or less the same territory. After the Second World War women gradually started wearing bikinis to the beach and adopting more revealing two-piece summer outfits. It must have been second nature for cartoonists to wonder how such daringly sophisticated summer wear would be greeted down on the farm.

This time it is Shermund who got there first. Her cover for the April 1948 Esquire contrasts not only the rural shepherd with the fashionable woman, it also juxtaposes the older male and the younger female generation. The typical young male Esquire reader would have had no trouble imagining the old man's reaction to the attractive woman walking by even if it weren't so obviously delineated on his face.

Barbara Shermund
Esquire, April 1948

https://www.amazon.com/watching-illustration-Shermund-Magazine-art/dp/B072Q9NFMJ/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542148268&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=%22Barbara+Shermund%22+Esquire

Given the prominence of Esquire's monthly covers, it would be hard to argue that Arno hadn't seen Shermund's cover illustration. Arno's editors at the New Yorker likely must have seen it as well. Arno's New Yorker cover appeared a little more than four years after Shermund's. He doubles down on the passing women but he also backs off a bit, losing the one-on-one intimacy of Shermund's encounter. The three figures seen here are not so much individual personalities as conventionalized types. The farmer is younger than Shermund's, to be sure, but it is his unexpected behavior rather than his wide-eyed smile that makes this gag memorable.

Peter Arno
The New Yorker, August 2, 1952

Amanda Gormley, Barbara Shermund's niece, responds:

In Shermund’s piece the female, strikingly reminiscent to a later photo of Marilyn Monroe, walks independently alone past all manner of living things that stop to take her in. Even the squirrel has stopped chewing on his nut.

In Arno’s cover, the male is the more central figure, clueless to his wandering thresher and the accumulating steam cloud overhead. 

Shermund’s female “owns it” while Arno’s male “is owned.” 

Two very different voices.

Note:  "Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins: The Life and Art of Barbara Shermund" is now on view at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. It will remain on exhibit through March 31, 2019.

Instagram posts hashtagged #peterarno may be seen here.

Posts on Instagram with the hashtag #barbarashermund may be reviewed here.

Back in 2011 my very first post on Peter Arno was about the sale of the original cover art seen here. I have since written more than one hundred posts about the artist.

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Peter Arno

Barbara Shermund

Magazine Covers

Cartoon Similarities

Bikinis

The New Yorker

Esquire

Attempted Bloggery's Peripatetic Index

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Barbara Shermund: Diving for Greenbacks?

In decades past, it was a common practice for well-off cruise ship passengers to toss coins overboard at natives who would dive for them. This was a popular practice in the West Indies and elsewhere in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly with silver coins. The passengers found it entertaining and the divers, mostly boys or young men, found it financially rewarding. Such diving for coins is depicted on the cover of the old Life magazine for April 1936. Barbara Shermund's society matron has neglected to carry the requisite small change.

Barbara Shermund
Life, April 1936

Scan by Dick Buchanan

With this cover, Ms. Shermund brings the sensibility of her New Yorker work to Life magazine. It therefore seems fair to ask why this work didn't appear instead on the cover of the New Yorker where perhaps it might have been a more natural fit. One reason could be its similarity to the work of Helen E. Hokinson, who painted a series of New Yorker covers depicting her own society matron on a world tour.

Helen E. Hokinson
The New Yorker, March 7, 1931

Life magazine was to cease publication in November of 1936 and be replaced by Henry Luce's new magazine of the same name. Interestingly, though, within a year of the appearance of Shermund's Life cover, the New Yorker did publish a cover depicting natives diving for coins. It is by Roger Duvoisin.

Roger Duvoisin
The New Yorker, February 6, 1937

Note:  Once again I give my sincere thanks to Dick Buchanan, who now makes his thirty-eighth contribution to this blog with his scan of Barbara Shermund's splendid Life magazine cover. Dick's archive is known throughout the land as the Dick Buchanan Cartoon Clip Files. He contributes regularly to Mike Lynch Cartoons, most recently a festive post entitled "From the Dick Buchanan Files: Winter and Holiday Gag Cartoons 1939 - 1955." I highly recommend it. Heck, it's enough to make me want to learn how to turn on my scanner.

Does this sort of coin diving still occur anywhere today? Was it done in by World War II? By inflation? By clad coinage? Elie Wiesel criticizes the practice in Night (1956) on moral grounds.

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Barbara Shermund

Helen E. Hokinson

Roger Duvoisin

Dick Buchanan

Life Magazine

Christmas

Attempted Bloggery's Non-Denominational Index

  
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Robert Day: Treading Lightly

One might not necessarily expect to find an especially robust market for old magazine Christmas gift subscription forms, but the New Yorker at least had the good sense to illustrate such forms with gorgeous magazine covers from its archive. A subscription form offered and sold last year on eBay includes a Robert Day cover from 1935 illustrating a Christmas shopper who has good reason to tread lightly.

The New Yorker Christmas gift subscription form

Robert Day
eBay Listing Ended October 13, 2016

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-1930s-039-50s-THE-NEW-YORKER-Magazine-NYC-New-York-City-Signed-subscrip-Form-/272158516110?hash=item3f5de9638e%3Ag%3AfXcAAOSwmmxW3FzB&nma=true&si=YQGb25QThn5Fxe78BW8tTy6VzZY%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Robert Day
eBay Item Description

The original magazine cover by Robert Day:

Robert Day
The New Yorker, December 7, 1935

Note:  Robert Day doesn't get enough play here. Readers are encouraged to contribute scans or photos of original Day art or of seldom-seen published cartoons.


Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Robert Day

The New Yorker

Christmas

Attempted Bloggery's Wind-Up Index

Attempted Bloggery supports net neutrality.

02404

Dorothy McKay: Christmas Spirits

The repeal of Prohibition took effect on December 5, 1933 with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment to the Constitution. The timing led to an unusual Life magazine Christmas cover by Dorothy McKay. It's not that "Brother Tupper"—nice alliteration—is drinking again already; he never stopped. It's just that his obviously red "nose is legal again," a very satisfactory resolution for the clergyman who has no problem with him being under the influence even while entertaining the children as Santa Claus. The other priest seems to be harboring second thoughts, as he very well should.

There's a lot wrong with the underlying assumptions and stereotypes of this magazine cover, but how was it received by its Depression-era audience? Was the repeal of the Volstead Act deemed a great boon or, more realistically, a mixed blessing? Was an inebriated Santa Claus really the way Life wanted to celebrate this historic crossroads?

"I'm glad brother Tupper's nose is legal again."
Dorothy McKay
Life, December 1933

Scan by Dick Buchanan

Note: A Yuletide thank-you to Dick Buchanan for providing the old blog with the magazine cover seen here from the celebrated Dick Buchanan Cartoon Clip Files. Dick contributes regularly to Mike Lynch Cartoons, most recently a post entitled, "From the Dick Buchanan Files: Holiday and Winter Cartoons 1948 - 1960." Cheers!


Dorothy McKay was a leading cartoonist of her day. Readers are encouraged to contribute scans or photographs of original McKay art or of obscure published cartoons.


Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Dorothy McKay

Life

Christmas

Dick Buchanan

Attempted Bloggery's Sobering Index

Attempted Bloggery supports net neutrality.

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