The Monday Tilley Watch takes a glancing look at the art and artists of the latest issue of The New Yorker
The Cartoonists and Cartoons:
Twelve cartoons, twelve cartoonists. No newbies. No duos, that we know of. The longest active cartoonist contributor in the issue is this cartoonist.
The Rea Irvin Talk Watch:
Back in 2017 someone decided it would be a fab idea to replace Rea Irvin’s perfect Talk design (shown below) with a redrawn version by a contemporary illustrator to note The New Yorker‘s move from midtown to One World Trade Center. But the very next issue should’ve seen Mr. Irvin’s Talk design return to where it had run for 92 years. The two designs: one classic, the other a take-off on the classic, do not compare. Read more here.
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): 163. Number of cartoons contributed: 261.