Reminder: Liza Donnelly & Sara Lautman In Conversation At Politics & Prose
Today at 7! Sara Lautman, (upper left) who began contributing to The New Yorker in 2016 will be in conversation with Liza Donnelly, who began contributing to the magazine in 1979. All the info here
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From Roxie Munro:
Studio share available starting June or July. My studiomate of the last few years is leaving NY. Private space in artists building, high ceilings, north light windows. Long Island City next to Silvercup Movie Studios. Best for illustrator, editor/writer, designer, cartoonist, etc. Email for info: roxiesstudio@gmail.com
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Barbara Shermund’s Cartoons: From Whimsy To Whamsy?
Curiosity recently took me on an unscheduled trip through Esquire Magazine’s cartoon history. It started with all the Barbara Shermund talk in this household during the past week due to The New York Times “Overlooked” Shermund article.
In a nutshell, for those of you who aren’t familiar with Ms. Shermund and her work: she was one of the earliest New Yorker artists, selling a cover to the magazine within its first half year of existence (it appeared June 13, 1925). She contributed nearly 600 cartoons in the next 19 years at the magazine, and 7 more covers. A remarkable contribution in such a relatively brief time. Following the New Yorker, her work primarily appeared in Esquire.
What’s fascinated me, especially lately, is how her work changed, from her New Yorker years to her Esquire years (her early Esquire years overlapped with her later New Yorker years). Not being an art historian, I don’t have all the lingo to describe the differences properly, so I’ll just say, to my eye, her work drastically changed.
Because of two must-reads, Judith Yaross Lee’s Defining New Yorker Humor and Liza Donnelly’s Very Funny Ladies history of The New Yorker‘s women cartoonists, I became aware of how in tune, how pointed, Shermund’s caption writing was in her earlier work — the writing often, though not always, reflecting the concerns of the modern woman in the 1920s and 1930s.
Her drawings during that period — the style that is — were exquisite, i.e., beautiful. We do not know why both captions and drawings began to flag during her Esquire years, but we do know that she began to rely on outside ideas while at Esquire. That might suggest her muse had abandoned her, or as was the case with Peter Arno, it might suggest she was having difficulty keeping up with the demand for her work, or it suggests the unknowable.
In my hunt to discover the why of the change in style, I’ll tell you right here and now, I still do not know the answer. The unscheduled trip I mentioned earlier meant looking at as much of Shermund’s Esquire work as possible to determine when her earlier style morphed into her later style. It may not be possible to pinpoint a time. We’ll see. I doubt I’ll be able to determine why it happened. Sometimes, as we know, stuff happens.
Last week, as I dug into Esquire’s cartoons, I came across this wonderful little book, The Sixth New Year, published by Esquire in 1939. It’s a collection of some of the early great pieces that appeared in the magazine, including Hemingway’s “The Snows Of Kilimanjaro,” one of the earliest feathers in Esquire’s cap. The book contains a number of color plates (Esquire was/is? proud of its extensive use of the color cartoon. From Arnold gingrich’s intro to the Esquire Cartoon Album: “When Esquire was new, no American magazine had ever devoted full-color pages to cartoons…” ). Two of the color plates in The Sixth New Year are Shermund cartoons. Here’s one of them:
Perhaps a clue to Shermund’s change of style (and, um, “content”) can be found on this page from The Sixth New Year, where there is talk of Esquire‘s cartoons vs The New Yorker‘s:
So, did Esquire’s “Whamsy” inspire Ms. Shermund to move away from The New Yorker’s so-called “sophisticated Whimsy”? From this drawing in The New Yorker, December 6, 1930…
To this one in Esquire, mid-1940s…
Questions, questions, questions, with, at this point in time, no answers.
My reading, Esquire-wise thus far:
The Sixth New Year (1939)
Esquire Cartoon Album (1957)
Esquire’s World Of Humor (1965)
Nothing But People: The Early Days At Esquire, by Arnold Gingrich (1971)…Mr. Gingrich was a co-founder of Esquire, and its first editor.
…Other than the above reading there’s been a healthy amount of poking around on the internet, examining the hordes of Shermund cartoons to be found there, from all periods of her career.
[ I should add, though I’m not sure full disclosure is necessary in this case, that I had a brief flurry of interaction with the “new” Esquire in the late 1970s while it was in development following its purchase by Clay Felker and Milton Glaser. I met both of them in the Esquire offices after they purchased a half dozen cartoons of mine. Alas, an editorial decision soon afterwards nixed the use of cartoons in the revamped Esquire, and my cartoons were never used].____________________________________________________________________________
Cover Revealed For Martin / Bliss Book
Harry Bliss and Steve Martin continue their duo act with Number One Is Walking: My Life In The Movies And Other Diversions, out this November 15th from Celadon Books.