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Peanuts: Happy New Year from the Bakers of Butternut Bread
Fewer than three weeks into writing this blog I happened upon some original artwork by Charles M. Schulz from an advertising campaign for Butternut Bread. The resulting post remains my most popular...
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New Year's Balloons: Arnie Levin New Yorker Cover Art
If you're going to throw a spectacular New Year's Eve party, you need to have certain things: a band, a dance floor, party hats, noisemakers, champagne glasses—and, of course, festive balloons! Check!...
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My Entry in the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #598
Meditate over my entry in the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #598 for January 1, 2018. The drawing is by Danny Shanahan."Get your own damn ball."These captions didn't reach nirvana:"Strive to...
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Saul Steinberg's Pyramid #2
Every landscape by Saul Steinberg is a thing of wonder, to be sure, but is it possible his Pyramid #2, from 1968, is a bit too symmetrical? Or do the faces of the pyramid, the different designs of the...
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Saul Steinberg's Pyramid #8
Six years ago at Christie's New York, Saul Steinberg's 1968 composition Pyramid #8 sold at auction for the same price, $12,500, as Pyramid #2 did last month. The eighth work in the series has two...
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Saul Steinberg's Pyramid #4
The fourth numbered composition in Saul Steinberg'sPyramid series from 1968 bears labels from two galleries, one in Los Angeles and one in New York, but notably not the Betty Parsons Gallery. The piece...
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Four Souvenir Sketches by Niculae Asciu
Four souvenir sketches on colored index cards by cartoonist Nicolae Asciu (1942-2013) were offered for sale on eBay in 2015. Two of them are gags about stethoscopes, one is about the violin, and one is...
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Frank Crowninshield's Copy of The Prince of Wales and Other Famous Americans...
Caricaturist Miguel Covarrubias inscribed Vanity Fair editor Frank Crowninshield's copy of The Prince of Wales and Other Famous Americans in 1925, the year of publication. He credited Crowninshield...
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Nickolas Muray's Copy of The Prince of Wales and Other Famous Americans by...
Just sold at auction this past fall by Lion Heart Autographs is a signed copy of The Prince of Wales and Other Famous Americans. The book, published in 1925, was inscribed in Spanish by author Miguel...
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My Entry in the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #599
Latch onto my entry in the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #599 for January 8, 2018. The drawing is by Michael Maslin."Quit working on the wheel and invent some antibiotics, dammit!"Here's another I...
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Miguel Covarrubias: Miss Shirley Temple Signs a New Contract
Child star Shirley Temple's parents negotiated a new movie contract for her in 1934.After the success of her first three movies, Shirley's parents realized that their daughter was not being paid enough...
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Roz Chast at the Cornell Club
Yesterday I attended a reception at the Cornell Club in New York City. In the third floor library, I was delighted to find a copy of Roz Chast'sTheories of Everything (2006) opened to the Charles...
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An Anatol Kovarsky Attention-Grabber
A photostat of an obscure cartoon by the great Anatol Kovarsky turned up on eBay this year. I ran it by the artist's daughter, who offered her comments:I would date the cute cartoon of the photographer...
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Richard Decker's Idea of a Self-Portrait
Cartoonist Richard Decker skirts the traditional idea of a self-portrait while showing us that his son Philip, age ten months, is already a budding art critic. This very antithesis of a self-portrait...
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James Stevenson: Vanya in the Hamptons
Andrew Zerman has sent a photograph of original art from The New Yorker by James Stevenson. The drawing was a gift from Mr. Zerman's father, who purchased it at the Nicholls Gallery probably in the...
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Carl Rose: Shake Well Before Using
In October we were treated to a single page of interesting book illustrations on various literary subjects by Carl Rose. At that time the identity of the book for which they were created was unknown....
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My Entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #600
Defy gravity with my entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #600 for January 15, 2018. The drawing is by Drew Panckeri."Whose turn is it to take him for a spacewalk?"Note: Last week,...
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A Syd Hoff Salute
If Peter Arno was TheNew Yorker's quintessential elite Manhattan cartoonist, Syd Hoff was the cartoonist who best represented the working-class sensibilities of the Bronx. Back in the day, my own...
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Syd Hoff for BarcaLounger
For a 1950 BarcaLounger ad that appeared on a full page in Life magazine, cartoonist Syd Hoff created a nine-panel gag cartoon that not only makes the case for having a BarcaLounger at home, it...
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Syd Hoff: Trouble is Brewing
In the October 1945 issue of True, Staff Sergeant George Ammerman drily asks what happens when American armed forces find themselves stationed in remote corners of the world lacking appropriate alcohol...
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