Friday Spill: The New Yorker’s First New Year’s Cover

The New Yorker’s First New Year’s Cover

It seems only right that the New Yorker began a new year with a cover by Rea Irvin, and that Irvin would include Eustace Tilley (appearing, cuckoo clock-like at the stroke of midnight). It was Irvin’s 9th cover in approximately ten months.

Tilley made two other appearances in the same issue (not counting his weekly Talk Of The Town heading spot), both as part of Corey Ford’s final entry of “The Making Of A Magazine” series (featuring art by Johan Bull):

After a roller coaster debut year (a year in which it came close to folding), The New Yorker began to pick up steam in 1926. The good times were beginning for Tilley & Co.

______________________________________________________________

Rea Irvin’s A-Z Entry:

Rea Irvin (pictured above. Self portrait above from Meet the Artist) Born, San Francisco, 1881; died in the Virgin Islands,1972. Irvin was the cover artist for the New Yorker’s first issue, February 21, 1925. He was the magazine’s first art and only art supervisor (some refer to him as its first art editor) holding the position from 1925 until 1939 when James Geraghty assumed the title of art editor. Irvin then became art director and remained in that position until William Shawn officially succeeded Harold Ross in early 1952. Irvin’s last original work for the magazine was the magazine’s cover of July 12, 1958. The February 21, 1925 Eustace Tilley cover had been reproduced every year on the magazine’s anniversary until 1994, when R. Crumb’s Tilley-inspired cover appeared. Tilley has since reappeared, with other artists substituting from time-to-time. Number of New Yorker covers (not including the repeat appearances of the first cover every anniversary up to 1991): 179. Number of cartoons contributed: 261.

Johan Bull’s A-Z Entry:

Johan Bull (photograph dated 1934, courtesy of the Bull family) Born c. 1894, Oslo. Died Stowe, Vermont, Sept. 1945. New Yorker work (cartoons): July 4, 1925 – Oct. 22, 1927 *his NYTs obit says he contributed to The New Yorker until 1930, perhaps the last three years he contributed spot drawings(?)