Peter Arno Inducted Into The Society of Illustrators Hall Of Fame
Peter Arno was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame last night in Manhattan at an awards ceremony that also included five other recipients (including The New Yorker cover artist, Kadir Nelson).
I was honored to be asked to help induct Mr. Arno. Here’s what I had to say about him:
Arno was a riot. He was a mischief-maker, a card, a character – he didn’t pull any punches, whether he was in a nightclub, or being interviewed. He was a star like no other New Yorker artist. He was supremely confident, and incredibly talented. Roger Angell called him the magazine’s first genius. Harold Ross, the fellow who invented The New Yorker called Arno “the greatest artist in the world.”
It seems very right to me that Arno has been inducted into the Society’s Hall of Fame this year, which is also the year of The New Yorker’s 100th anniversary. Without Arno, The New Yorker might not have reached one hundred years. Without Arno, it’s possible the magazine wouldn’t have lasted two years.
No other New Yorker artist –- not one –- could lay claim to helping save The New Yorker from extinction. In 1925 Arno created a series of drawings featuring two Victorian era ladies he called The Whoops Sisters. They were not prim or proper. As my mother would’ve said, they had mouths on them. Through them, the reading public fell in love with The New Yorker. The magazine’s circulation soared, and the magazine survived.
Arno, through the sheer force of his work – those spectacular covers and cartoons — lifted the magazine’s art onto higher ground. A full-page Arno drawing in The New Yorker was something to behold. He defined a successful cartoon as a one-two punch. A definition that, I believe, has held up to this day as something we workaday cartoonists strive for.
I’ll end with a couple of Arno quotes from 1937, when he 33 years old.
“At no time in the history of the world have there been so many damned morons together in one place as here in New York right now. Yes, these people make me mad, the young ones more than the old ones. You don’t do good work of this sort unless you’re mad at something.”
“I’ve always rebelled against the social order. As I grew up it became dissatisfaction with the life around me. I would see ridiculous people in public places, in night clubs, on trains and beaches, at parties, and I was awfully annoyed by them, by the things they said and did. I had a really hot impulse to go and exaggerate their ridiculous aspects. That anger, if you like, gave my stuff punch and made it live.”
“I don’t think anything could be as much fun as to get a good hold on a pompous person and shake him or her until you can hear their teeth rattling.”
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Peter Arno’s A-Z Entry
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 (Regan Arts, 2016).
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Who’s At This Weekend’s NYC Comic Con
Comic Con is underway in New York. I’ll send you over to D.D. Degg at The Daily Cartoonist for a good run down of what’s going on. Looking through the Comic Con site I see these New Yorker folks will be there: Drew Panckeri, Peter Kuper, Jason Chatfield, Hilary Campbell, Lisa Rothstein (if there are more, please let me know).
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Liza Donnelly, Felipe Galindo, Andrea Arroyo Receive Awards At Jt. Just Annual Festival of International Press Cartoons
Ms. Donnelly was presented with the International Press Award this past week at the St. Just Annual Festival of International Press Cartoons. Below: Ms. Donnelly on stage upon receiving the award.
Felipe Galindo (far right) and Andrea Arroyo (second from right) on stage. They received The People’s Award:
