Latest Arrival: Tell Me A Story Where The Bad Girl Wins: The Life and Art of Barbara Shermund
There’s nothing I like better than seeing a New Yorker artist given their due. The work of Barbara Shermund, a major contributor to the magazine from June 13, 1925 through September 16, 1944, had seemed to fade from the conversation over the years. Her shift from The New Yorker to Esquire so long ago seems to have contributed to the fade. Forgotten was her highly original “voice.” Here’s some of how I described her in my biography of Peter Arno:
If one New Yorker artist could be seen, at least for a short while, as a near doppleganger of Arno, both stylistically and thematically, it was Barbara Shermund…Her drawings, like Arno’s, focused mainly on the young, modern [F. Scott] Fitzgerald crowd; in Shermund’s case, there was more emphasis on young women talking to each other or past each other. Her work, at least in the the first decade of the magazine…was alive with the sights and language of young adults finding their way in the big city.
Her overdue recognition has been rolling out since she was first profiled in Liza Donnelly’s Funny Ladies (Ms. Donnelly credits Judith Yaross Lee’s Defining New Yorker Humor for sparking her interest in Ms. Shermund’s work), followed by a New York Times piece (March 7, 2022) in their “Overlooked No More” series. And now, from Fantagraphics, Caitlin McGurk’s Tell Me A Story Where The Bad Girl Wins: The Life and Art of Barbara Shermund.
The book landed in my hands just a few hours ago; I’ll do a follow-up with more impressions once I’ve sat with it for awhile and read through. But I’m eager to record my first thoughts: this is the kind of book I’d love to see produced for other major contributors, especially those who have somehow missed out being the subject of an anthology (Robert Weber comes to mind). Ms. Shermund’s art is gloriously handled throughout — from endpapers to endpapers. The author, and publisher, recognizing Ms. Shermund’s place in The New Yorker‘s pantheon, have done right by her.
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Fave Photo Of The Week: Ed Steed’s Book Launch
My thanks to Stephen Nadler, the fellow behind the curtain at Attempted Bloggery, for this photo taken at Ed Steed’s book launch last night at Unnameable Books in Brooklyn. That’s (the well lit) New Yorker cartoonist Emily Flake to the left.
Mr. Steed’s collection, Forces Of Nature, is out now.