Art & Artists
For many years I’ve had a very small ongoing non-cartoon sideline: doing oil paintings on canvas or board. These are done for a laugh; a different kind of laugh than cartoons. They’re given to family members on birthdays and holidays, or sometimes they’re just placed on a shelf.
Left: an example of one of the paintings (done on plywood)
Recently, after doing a painting, I looked down at the dessert plate I’ve used as a palette for the past few years, and this is what I saw:
Painting with oil and palettes reminds me of the era of the artist cartoon. In 1970 The New Yorker published The New Yorker Album Of Art And Artists. The flap copy reads, in part:
“We hope that the book will have something to delight all followers of the arts, regardless of their special feelings toward the fads and trends and excitements that have enlivened the world of art in the past few decades.”
What’s (possibly) ironic is that the cartoon about art has, itself, become somewhat obsolete — a fad that lasted (for decades). Yes, we still see a drawing about artists in The New Yorker. Here’s an Ed Steed from the issue of May 21, 2018:
But they are no longer as popular as they were in the 1950s through 1970s. Back then, they were a go-to for cartoonists (along with such staples as the desert island, and the psychiatrist’s couch). According to The New Yorker‘s database (1925-2005) there were 1,880 cartoons referencing “artists” in that time period. If one plugs “art” into the search box, the database begins by offering up the first 2,000 results. I searched for “artist” in The New Yorker‘s Cartoon Bank, and saw approximately 100 or so more contemporary cartoons (the search does not allow to see work chronologically, so it’s difficult to isolate when work appeared, unless one goes to each drawing to see the publishing history). I used my eye to place “newer” work in one column and “older” work in the other. The “newer” was quickly overtaken, numbers-wise by the “older” in just a few pages in (50 cartoons per page).
One last thing about New Yorker art & artist cartoons. When I interviewed Mort Gerberg in 2021 we had this exchange:
Mort Gerberg: “…Donald [Reilly], of course, was the author of the greatest caption ever written.”
MM: Oh! What caption is that?
MG: Ah, well you know the cartoon. You’ve seen it a million times. It’s the evil Lord who comes in to the studio, where there’s an artist…
MM: Oh yeah — I know where you’re going. That is an incredible drawing.
MG: I do lectures on that caption.
MM: A highly memorable drawing.
(Mr. Reilly’s drawing appeared in The New Yorker, December 31, 1966).