Robert Gottlieb: 1931-2023

                                          ROBERT GOTTLIEB: 1931-2023

Word arrived this evening that Robert Gottlieb, The New Yorker‘s third editor, passed away today at age 92. It has been well-documented that the announcement of Gottlieb’s hiring as New Yorker editor in 1987, replacing William Shawn, was greeted at first by a near staff wide protest. However, once Gottlieb settled in at the magazine, it became clear that he was not there to revolutionize The New Yorker, but to build on what existed. 

For Lee Lorenz, who was the magazine’s art editor at the time, Gottlieb’s arrival meant a period of adjustment: the magazine’s artists adjusting to Gottlieb, and Gottlieb adjusting to the artists. Lee, acting as the bridge between editor and artists, said (in his book The Art Of the New Yorker 1925-1995) he felt at times like a “marriage counselor.” Lee told me (and I’m sure others) that Gottlieb wasn’t buying much art at first. Lorenz wrote: [Gottlieb’s] “quirky, idiosyncratic sense of humor, temporarily threw the artists off stride, and during the the first few months the inventory shrank ominously.”  “…After six months, during which we bought fewer covers and cartoons than we were publishing, our weekly purchases began to rise.” 

I encourage anyone with an interest in the magazine’s cartoons and cartoonists to find a copy of Lee’s book and go to the section detailing the Shawn-Gottlieb-Tina Brown period.* It’s fascinating reading, covering the new artists that came in under Gottlieb, as well as the ones that couldn’t quite make the adjustment. Lee also details the subtle physical changes to the magazine (the magazine’s illustration department was created in those years).  

As for myself, living and working through the Shawn-Gottlieb transition, the anxiety caused by Shawn’s departure eventually calmed. It was, of course, hard not to notice the cover art brightening, and cartoons appearing that embraced puns. One day early on in Gottlieb’s tenure, my New Yorker colleague (and wife) and I were in the art department for a photo shoot. We’d brought along our first child (she was about three). Lee Lorenz, for reasons I’ll never know, decided to bring the three of us to meet Gottlieb, who couldn’t have been more gracious. He gave us a little tour; he was as excited as we were to note New Yorker office curiosities (“No one can seem to open this door!”… “Look at these fixtures”, etc., etc.). I’ll always be grateful for his non-revolutionary stewardship of the magazine, and for encouraging the likes of us, the artists and writers, to continue on, in the best New Yorker tradition, doing what we were there to do. 

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More:

The New Yorker: David Remnick’s “Remembering Robert Gottlieb, Editor Extraordinaire.” 

The New York Times: “Robert Gottlieb, Eminent Editor From le Carre to Clinton, Dies At 92”      

*My thanks to my New Yorker colleague Seth Fleishman for pointing out that Lee Lorenz’s book, The Art Of The New Yorker: 1925-1995 is viewable here through the Internet Archive.