Here’s to you, New York Public Library, in honor of and thanks for your current exhibit celebrating The New Yorker‘s 100th anniversary, A Century of The New Yorker. Below are some of the magazine’s earliest drawings featuring the New York Public Library lions, Patience and Fortitude .
Above: a spectacular Barbara Shermund spot drawing from the issue of February 2, 1929. Below, a W.C. Galbraith drawing from the issue of May 24, 1930.
Below: From Lapchek, in the issue of July 16, 1932. 
Below: a spot drawing by an unidentified artist.
Below: Peter Arno in the issue of April 14, 1928:
The earliest NYPL lion drawing (according to the database) is by James Daugherty (aka Jimmie-the-Ink), from the issue of October 31st, 1925.
Below: From Richard Taylor, in the issue of October 15, 1938: 
Below: from Perry Barlow, in the issue of August 1, 1931:
And one more from Perry Barlow, in the issue of September 2, 1944:
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The above cartoonists A-Z entries, in alphabetical order:
Peter Arno Born Curtis Arnoux Peters, Jr., January 8, 1904, New York City. Died February 22, 1968, Port Chester, NY. New Yorker work: 1925 -1968. Key collection: Ladies & Gentlemen (Simon & Schuster, 1951) The Foreword is by Arno. For far more on Arno please check out my biography of him, Peter Arno: The Mad Mad World of The New Yorker’s Greatest Cartoonist.
Perry Barlow ( photo above from barlowgeneology.com) Born 1892, McKinney, Texas. Died, Westport, Connecticut, December 26,1977. NYer work: 1926 -1974, with 1,574 drawings and 135 covers. According to Barlow’s obit in The New York Times (Dec. 27, 1977) William Shawn called him “one of the gentlest and most humane of all comic artists…he was also one of our three or four most prolific people.” In the same piece, James Geraghty (The New Yorker’s Art editor from 1939 thru 1973) said “he often tried to interest Mr. Barlow in publishing a book of his drawings ‘but he was halfhearted about it.’” Mr. Barlow’s wife, Dorothy Hope Smith, played a role in his work: she colored-in his covers because her husband was partly color blind.
James Daugherty ( aka Jimmie-the-Ink) (above) Born, Ashville, North Carolina, 1890. Died, February 21, 1974, Boston, Mass. According to his NYTs obit (Feb 22, 1974) Daugherty was “an early nonobjective artist of the synchromist school, which structured paintings by means of flat planes and discs of brilliant colors…” He was also an acclaimed children’s book author, who received The Newberry Medal in 1940 for his book “Daniel Boone”. He contributed 19 drawings and two covers to The New Yorker, from August 1, 1925 through April 10, 1926. More information: daughertyfoundation
W.C. Galbraith Born, January 21, 1894, Salt Lake City, Utah. Died, September 13, 1978. New Yorker work: 1929 – 1940; 151 drawings and 7 covers. More information.
Lapchek New Yorker work: three drawings witihn the years 1932 -1934.
Barbara Shermund (self portrait, above) Born, San Francisco. 1899. Studied at The California School of Fine Arts. Died, 1978, New Jersey. New Yorker work: June 13, 1925 thru September 16, 1944. 8 covers and 599 cartoons. Shermund’s post-New Yorker work was featured in Esquire. For more on Shermund: see Liza Donnelly’s book, Funny Ladies — a history of The New Yorker’s women cartoonists, as well as Tell Me A Story Where The Bad Girl Wins, by Caitlin McGurk.
Richard Taylor (self portrait from Meet the Artist) Born in Fort William, Ontario, Sept. 18, 1902. Died in 1970. NYer work: 1935 -1967. Collections: The Better Taylors ( Random House, 1944, and a reprint edition by World Publishing, 1945), Richard Taylor’s Wrong Bag (Simon & Schuster, 1961). Taylor also authored Introduction to Cartooning ( Watson -Guptill, 1947). From Taylor’s introduction: the “book is not intended to be a ‘course in cartooning’…instead, it attempts to outline a plan of study — something to be kept at the elbow to steer by.”