Peter Arno: The Scoutmaster's Secret

A preliminary New Yorker drawing by Peter Arno seen at Skinner in 2007 is almost good enough to publish, but it does have a problem or two. The speaker, trying to correct a misunderstanding, is depicted a little too awkwardly with his back toward us and his legs at odd angles as he tries to pull away from an exotic and seductive woman. The artist could twist him around so that he faces us, and that might help, but there is still another problem. The situation we're encountering here is a complicated one, and we might read it better the way we read everything, from left to right, seeing the seductress before we see the man's reaction to her. And then there is that obtrusive pillow in the foreground, blocking the woman's leg. Surely that doesn't help the diagonal flow.

Arno fixes all these problems in the published version, but he goes further. He leaves the scoutmaster's legs parallel, improving the visual flow. He redecorates, moving the flowers forward and leaving the hat on the floor in the foreground. The end result has much greater immediacy. Meanwhile the editors have tweaked the word great into grave, further emphasizing the laughable earnestness of the honest scoutmaster.

"You're making a great mistake, Miss Loesch. We scoutmasters are not entrusted with military secrets." Peter Arno, Preliminary art, The New Yorker, July 27, 1940, page 18

Peter Arno's signature

Skinner, September 7, 2007, Sale 2371, Lot 788 https://www.skinnerinc.com/auctions/2371/lots/788

Note:  Well, there you have it:  a lesson from the great Peter Arno in how to turn a work of preliminary New Yorker cartoon art into the real deal. He makes it looks so easy!