Friday Spill: Thinking About Helen Hokinson’s “When Were You Built?”; Chatfield’s Sports Report; Overseas Exhibit Of Interest: Sarah Akinterinwa

 

Thinking About Hokinson

When I think about Helen Hokinson’s work I don’t especially think of her famous “Club Women” drawings. Nor do I think of the Hokinson original drawing that hangs on a wall a few feet from where I work (although that does get a lot of attention). The Hokinson drawing I think of most often, especially when I’m staring off into cartoon space waiting for a gift from the Cartoon Gods, is the one you see below. It was originally published in The New Yorker, July 20, 1946.

 

I came to know the drawing because of the 1948 Hokinson collection that bears the drawing on the cover and the drawing’s caption as its title. Oddly, the drawing does not appear within the book. 

So why is “When were you built?” my go-to Hokinson?  Why this particular drawing, of the approximately eighteen hundred Hokinson contributed to the magazine? 

The simplest answer is, because I love the drawing.  I love the moment we’re observing — the serene scene Hokinson has given us. I’m not one to dig too deep into the nuts and bolts of cartoons, but if I did I’d probably allow that Hokinson’s unabashed use of one point perspective attracts me — I love the strength of it (hey, it worked for Da Vinci’s Last Supper four hundred and fifty years earlier, why shouldn’t it work for Hokinson). The perspective’s one point exists within a small cluster of leaves overhanging the street. It’s easily found by letting your eye follow the lines pointing inward: the top and bottom of the picket fence, the rooflines of the large house and the smaller house on the right. Ms. Hokinson didn’t strictly adhere to the one point, and really, who cares. Her drawings are so good that what is “off” perspective-wise is off with style and assurance. We believe and fully accept what she’s drawn for us. In other words, it works. 

Another reason why I keep returning to the drawing: I love the solidity of the home on the left and its perfectly balanced attention to detail. Not too much detailing of clapboard siding…just enough. The house across the street, to the right in the drawing, is simpler — it’s almost a sketch. Its simplicity leaves the focus on the main house with the woman standing in the garden. 

 Hokinson manages to show us plenty of detail in the garden itself without letting the detail steal the show. When drawing flora and fauna I tend to let the Rapidograph pen point skip around, enough to suggest leaves, or plants. No skipping around for Hokinson — she managed to draw a recognizable gladiola garden without the garden becoming the focus of the drawing.  

Hokinson’s very first New Yorker drawing (in the issue of July 4, 1925), of a woman waving goodbye to a ship heading out to sea, tells us everything we need to know about her ability to capture a moment. Here, in the “when were you built” drawing, we are treated to three individuals, each playing a role: the slightly taken aback “Hokinson woman” in her garden, the inquisitive tourist leaning over the fence, and her friend, planted comfortably on the sidewalk, taking in the moment, taking in the home. 

Lastly, the home run caption. I’d love to say it was the work of her long-time collaborator, The New Yorker writer, James Reid Parker, but we can’t be certain (unless someone wants to attempt an answer by digging into The New Yorker files at The New York Public Library). I wish we knew which came first: the drawing or the caption. I lean to it being the caption that sparked the drawing. This is based on what Parker wrote about Hokinson following her death in 1949: 

“Helen herself was extremely good at thinking up subjects for the magazine covers she did in watercolor, but less so at devising situations with lines.”

Returning to my original question: why think of this drawing when I think of Hokinson? It’s a beautiful drawing by an artist at her peak, giving us an intimate moment, topped off by the extra zing of a sterling caption.

Applause! Applause! 

More: To see Ms. Hokinson’s original drawing, go here to Christopher Wheeler’s fab website. 

–Ms. Hokinson’s A-Z spill Entry: 

Helen Hokinson Born, Illinois, 1893; died, Washington, D.C., 1949. New Yorker work: 1925 -1949, with some work published posthumously. All of Hokinson’s collections are wonderful, but here are two favorites. Her first collection: So You’re Going To Buy A Book! (Minton, Balch & Co, 1931) and what was billed as “the final Hokinson collection”: The Hokinson Festival (Dutton & Co., 1956). According to a New Yorker document produced during Harold Ross’s editorship (1925-1951) rating their artists, Ms. Hokinson and Peter Arno occupied a special category unto themselves above all others.

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Jason Chatfield’s Sports Report: 

Dateline July 26, 2022 — The New Yorker Softball Team led a great victory against The New York Review of Books, winning 9-4.

Injury report: Mr. Chatfield sat this one out with a knee injury.  

 

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Overseas Exhibit Of Interest: Sarah Akinterinwa At London’s Cartoon Museum

From London’s Cartoon Museum this notice of an exhibit from August 11 – November of 2022:

Here’s some of the press release:

Sarah Akinterinwa began contributing to The New Yorker in August of 2020. Visit her website here. 

More Cartoon Museum event information here