Revisiting Newsweek’s Thurber Cover Story
I’ve a feeling that most Thurberites will recall the July 9,1951 TIME Magazine Thurber Cover story, and the cover itself, but might be hard pressed to remember that Thurber appeared on Newsweek‘s cover six years later.
My guess as to why — if that’s true (and I’ve no idea if it is) — is that the TIME cover was more memorable because it ran Thurber’s last published drawing (and a striking cover it was!) while Newsweek went with what you see above: a photo, and drawings of a dancing Thurber couple, and a Thurber dog.
I last wrote about the Newsweek cover story four years ago (August 7, 2019 to be exact). In the piece I mentioned there was a photo of a Zeiss-looped Thurber. I should’ve shown the photo then, so here it is four years later (by the way, the Zeiss loop is on display at the Thurber House, in Columbus Ohio):
And I inexcusably left out the below quote about Thurber’s art from the 2019 Spill piece:
“Thurber’s second distinguishing mark, which has made him intelligible and admired by non-English speakers, children, and — some say — dogs, is his memorable drawing technique, whose single line and fixed purpose explore so concisely the perplexities of human character.”