This week’s republication of a 1936 James Thurber New Yorker cover sent me over the moon (honestly, any Thurber art on the cover would’ve). It also sent me back, via The New Yorker‘s online archive to that year’s covers, and cover artists. Anytime I look at issues of many years gone by I experience a that was then, this is now moment. It’s a reflexive observational experience that’s developed over time as I’ve paddled around in the magazine’s history (that history includes The New Yorker‘s very first issue to the one that was published this week).
Looking at the covers of 1936, and counting how many were by contributing cartoonists (39), the percentage might surprise those used to the contemporary scene, where the magazine’s covers are overwhelmingly produced by illustrators. When the Tina Brown New Yorker era began in 1992, the ratio of cartoonist’s covers to illustrator’s covers was reversed.
For instance: of the 48 covers in 2022, 7 were contributed by 6 cartoonists: George Booth, Edward Koren, Barry Blitt, Saul Steinberg, John Cuneo, and Roz Chast. Sadly, three of those cartoonists — Steinberg, Booth, and Koren — are no longer with us). Of the 52 covers in 1936 (there weren’t any double issues back then), 10 of the magazine’s cartoonists produced 39 of the covers. The names from 1936 will likely be familiar to those who are familiar with New Yorker art, both cover and cartoon: Alajalov, Helen Hokinson, Robt. Day, William Steig, Rea Irvin, James Thurber, Perry Barlow, Leonard Dove, William Crawford Galbraith, and Peter Arno.
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If you want to see all six of James Thurber’s New Yorker covers, go here (and scroll down a bit) to Ohio State’s James Thurber site, overseen by Michael Rosen, who edited, among other Thurber collections, the truly fab Mile and A Half Of Lines: The Art Of James Thurber.