Article Of Interest: “Can Joy Of The Arts Bring Us Together?”
From The Washington Post, November 10, 2023, “Can Joy Of The Arts Bring Us Together?” —
this piece on The Jar, (with Liza Donnelly content).
— photo by Eric Korenman
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Book Spotlight
Talking with a tableful of New Yorker cartoonists yesterday, Frank Modell’s name came up. Frank, who passed away in May of 2016, was not only one of the nicest folks to walk the halls of the magazine, he was a through and through cartoonist. In his earliest days at The New Yorker he worked as assistant to the art editor, James Geraghty (among Franks duties: guiding a nearly blind James Thurber around the offices).
It’s always baffled me that Frank had just one cartoon collection in a New Yorker run that lasted 51 years, with 1,401 cartoons and a half dozen covers contributed). Stop Trying To Cheer Me Up (published in 1978) is a pure delight.
In 2013, Frank’s best friend and New Yorker colleague, James Stevenson published the must read The Life, Loves and Laughs of Frank Modell — the closest we’ll likely ever get to a Modell biography.
Frank Modell (photograph taken early 1990s) Born, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, September 6, 1917. Died, May 27, 2016, Guilford, Connecticut. New Yorker work: 1946 – 1997. Mr. Modell began his New Yorker career as assistant to the Art Editor, James Geraghty. He soon began contributing his cartoons (and cartoon ideas for others), with his first drawing appearing July 20, 1946. Besides his work for The New Yorker, he was a children’s book author and an actor (he appeared, most notably, in Woody Allen’s 1980 film, Stardust Memories). Key collection: Stop Trying To Cheer Me Up! (Dodd, Mead, 1978).
*”He just heard about stuffing.” appeared in The New Yorker issue of October 18, 1969.