Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Comics Journal Special Edition Winter 2004 Four Generations of Cartoonists by Al Hirschfeld Comics Journal Special Edition (2001) comic books. This item is not in stock. If you use the "Add to want list" tab to add this issue to your want list, we will email you when it becomes available. Edited by Gary Groth. 2001 marks the 25th anniversary of The Comics Journal, the renowned monthly magazine of journalism, criticism and scholarship. This edition's cover features Joe Sacco, whose recent book of reportage during the Bosnia civil war, Safe Area Gorazde, has been both a commercial and critical success. Sacco contributes a new cover, a new strip, and is the subject of a long interview. Taking full advantage of the coffee-table size and color capacity, text-and-visual features include an appreciation by Jim Woodring on the great turn-of-the-century cartoonist T.S. Sullivant, with many examples of Sulivant's virtuoso pen and ink work; an essay by Don Phelps (Reading the Funnies) on Smokey Stover, with a generous portion of full-color strips; an appreciation of the obscure newspaper cartoonist W.E. Hill by Bill Griffith with examples of Hill's full-page Sunday strips; and an excerpt from the second chapter of B. Krigstein, a critical biography of Bernard Krigstein forthcoming from Fantagraphics. The special edition also features new strips done especially for the magazine by today's best cartoonists, including: Dave Cooper, Bill Griffith, Charles Burns, Gary Panter, R. Crumb, Ivan Brunetti, Jaime Hernandez, Justin Green, Mary Fleener, Gilbert Hernandez, Phoebe Gloeckner, Carol Tyler, Richard Sala, Jordan Crane, Dylan Horrocks, Roger Langridge and Chris Ware. Softcover, 12-in. x 12-in., 120 pages, PC/PB&W. Mature Readers. Cover price $19.95. This item is not in stock. If you use the "Add to want list" tab to add this issue to your want list, we will email you when it becomes available. Edited by Gary Groth. The 2002 Summer Special spotlights master cartoonist Jim Woodring, with a spectacular cover painting, two essays on the artist's ouevre by Donald Phelps and Kenneth Smith, and a new interview. Text-and-art features include an appreciation of the cartoonist W.E. Hill by Zippy creator Bill Griffith (with many examples of Hill's gorgeous tabloid-sized Sunday pages in full-color), and Timothy Kreider on B. Kliban. The comics section's theme this volume is "Cartoonists on Music" and you can expect many of the greatest names in cartooning today, including: Mary Fleener, Roger Langridge, Peter Bagge, Spain, Carol Lay, Phoebe Gloeckner, Tony Millionaire, R. Crumb, Bill Griffith, David Mazzucchelli, Ivan Brunetti, Matt Groening, Sherri Flenniken, Richard Sala, Rick Geary, Mark Martin, and many more! Softcover, 12-in. x 12-in., 156 pages, PC/PB&W. Mature Readers. Cover price $19.95. This item is not in stock. If you use the "Add to want list" tab to add this issue to your want list, we will email you when it becomes available. Edited by Gary Groth. William Stout is one of the most accomplished, critically acclaimed and commercially successful illustrators, painters and cartoonists in America today. He has, for over 30 years, brought consummate draftsmanship, impeccable craft, painterly nuance and a mature vision that is, by turns, riotously Rabelaisian and awe-inspiringly naturalistic to virtually every form of visual popular culture -- from comics to film to gallery exhibitions. The Comics Journal Winter 2003 Special spotlights Stout's work with a beautiful cover, painted especially for this volume, and an interview with the artist in which he proves to be not only a great artist but an engaging raconteur and high-flying theorist as well. The interview covers his long career, which includes, among other highlights, his solo comics as well as his collaborations with Jack Kirby, Moebius, Al Williamson, Russ Manning and Harvey Kurtzman; his various film work for Jim Henson, Walt Disney and others; his album covers for Firesign Theatre, The Rolling Stones, and more. Essays included in the special are: Paul Gravett on "Whatever Happened to the Escape Artists," with new strips by the most prominent artists who appeared in that groundbreaking '80s British comics anthology (Escape), including Eddie Campbell and Carol Swain; Donald Phelps on Lynda Barry; Tom Spurgeon on Tom Hart; and Bill Blackbeard on Milt Gross. "Cartoonists on Patriotism" informs the comics section this time around with the comics of Joe Sacco, Bill Stout, Kim Deitch, R. Crumb, Bill Griffith, Jack Jackson, Sam Henderson, Tom Toles and many others! Softcover, 12-in. x 12-in., 180 pages, PC/PB&W. Mature Readers. Cover price $22.95. This item is not in stock. If you use the "Add to want list" tab to add this issue to your want list, we will email you when it becomes available. Edited by Gary Groth. "Conversations Among Four Generations of Cartoonists" - Jules Feiffer, Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware and the late Al Hirschfeld -- four of the greatest cartoonists of the 20th century -- come together to reflect upon the rich well of their 200-plus years of collective experience as artists in a series of once-in-a-lifetime conversations and interviews. If that weren't enough, this volume also includes: Al Hirschfeld Sketchbook; Alexander Theroux on Chris Ware; The Glory That Was The Simpsons; Jack Davis Unpublished Comic Strip; Lyonel Feininger; Phoebe Gloeckner; Ben Katchor; and Bill Mauldin. Softcover, 12-in. x 12-in., 192 pages, PC/PB&W. Mature Readers. Cover price $22.95. Customer Testimonials Our customers have some nice things to say about us: Customer Testimonials Mailing List Join our Mailing List for news and sales. We’ve been selling comics since 1961 (our first sale: Fantastic Four #1 at $0.25, see one of our first ads) and on the web since 1996. Copyright © 1996 - 2021 Lone Star Comics Inc. Character images copyright © their respective owners. The Comics Journal Special Edition. Jules Feiffer, Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, and the late Al Hirschfeld talk with each other about their art. Four of the greatest cartoonists of the 20th Century come together to talk about their lives, careers, influences, passions and preferences in art, literature, comics, film, theater and more, reflecting the rich well of their 200+ years of collective experience as artist. Jules Feiffer, Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, and the late Al Hirschfeld talk with each other about their art. Four of the greatest cartoonists of the 20th Century come together to talk about their lives, careers, influences, passions and preferences in art, literature, comics, film, theater and more, reflecting the rich well of their 200+ years of collective experience as artists in a series of once-in-a-lifetime conversations and interviews. Maus author Art Spiegelman chats with the late, great Al Hirschfeld and interviews fellow Pulitzer-prize winner Jules Feiffer, who is also interviewed by TCJ founder Gary Groth and chats with young lion Chris Ware. The only thing more extraordinary than these conversations taking place at all is to have so many of them between two covers! If that weren't enough: The issue also includes essays and criticism on a broad range of topics—including The Simpsons, Lyonel Feininger, Phoebe Gloeckner, Milt Gross, Ben Katchor and William Blake—written by the Journal's finest critics, such as Donald Phelps, Robert Fiore, Bill Blackbeard and R.C. Harvey, as well as short "Pass It On" essays on rising cartoonists you need to know about and a massive tribute section to Hirschfeld and Bill Mauldin, from their peers and admirers in the fields of art, literature, film, politics, theatre and beyond! Last but hardly least is our "Cartoonists On" section, boasting of comics-form essays, short stories and vignettes from today's finest cartoonists—including the likes of R. Crumb, Chris Ware, Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, Arnold Roth, Phoebe Gloeckner, Bill Griffith, Gary Panter and dozens of other cartooning English-language cartoonists, as well as new work from European and Japanese comics greats for the very first time—on the topic of "The Shock of Recognition" (the event, experience, or work of art that had a profound effect on them and their art). Al Hirschfeld. Albert "Al" Hirschfeld (June 21, 1903 – January 20, 2003) was an American caricaturist best known for his black and white portraits of celebrities and Broadway stars. Contents. Personal life. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, he moved with his family to New York City, where he received his art training at the Art Students League of New York. Following a divorce from Florence Ruth Hobby, [1] in 1943, he married Dolly Haas (1910–1994). They had one child, a daughter, Nina (b. 1945). In 1996, he married Louise Kerz, a theatre historian. [2] Career. In 1924, Hirschfeld traveled to Paris and London, where he studied painting, drawing and sculpture. When he returned to the United States, a friend, fabled Broadway press agent, Richard Maney, showed one of Hirschfeld's drawings to an editor at the New York Herald Tribune , which got Hirschfeld commissions for that newspaper and then, later, The New York Times . Hirschfeld's style is unique, and he is considered to be one of the most important figures in contemporary drawing and caricature, having influenced countless artists, illustrators, and cartoonists. His caricatures are almost always drawings of pure line in black ink, into which Hirschfeld dipped not a pen but a genuine crow’s quill. [3] Readers of The New York Times and other newspapers prior to the time they printed in color will be most familiar with the Hirschfeld drawings that are black ink on white illustration board. However, there is a whole body of Hirschfeld’s work in color. [4] Hirschfeld’s full-color paintings were commissioned by many magazines, often as the cover. Examples are TV Guide , Life Magazine , American Mercury , Look Magazine , The New York Times Magazine , The New Masses , and Seventeen Magazine . [5] He also illustrated many books in color, most notably among them Harlem As Seen By Hirschfeld , with text by William Saroyan. [6] Hirschfeld’s 1999 portrait of Liza Minnelli is an example of Hirschfeld’s work in color. It is also a fine example of how Hirschfeld achieved what he often sought: to capture a perfect likeness using a minimum number of lines. Hirschfeld achieved the uncanny likeness to Minnelli’s stance with only one line; Hirschfeld’s pen never left the page. [7] Hirschfeld himself found nothing interesting about caricatures that exaggerate and distort its subjects' faces. In fact Hirschfeld eschewed the designation of caricaturist altogether, calling himself a “character-ist” instead. Nonetheless he did face some complaints from his editors over the years; in a late-1990s interview with The Comics Journal Hirschfeld recounted how one editor told him his drawings of Broadway's "beautiful people" looked like "a bunch of animals". He was commissioned by CBS to illustrate a preview magazine featuring the network's new TV programming in fall 1963. One of the programs was Candid Camera , and Hirschfeld's caricature of the show's host Allen Funt outraged Funt so much he threatened to leave the network if the magazine were issued. Hirschfeld prepared a slightly different likeness, perhaps more flattering, but he and the network pointed out to Funt that the artwork prepared for newspapers and some other print media had been long in preparation and it was too late to withdraw it. Funt relented but insisted that what could be changed would have to be. Newsweek ran a squib on the controversy. Broadway, film, and more. Hirschfeld started young and continued drawing to the end of his life, thus chronicling nearly all the major entertainment figures of the 20th century. [8] During Hirschfeld's eight-decade career, he gained fame by illustrating the actors, singers, and dancers of various Broadway plays, which would appear in advance in The New York Times to herald the play's opening. Though "Theater" was Hirschfeld's best known field of interest, according to his long-time art dealer Margo Feiden, he actually drew more for the movies than he did for live plays. "By the ripe old age of 17, while his contemporaries were learning how to sharpen pencils, Hirschfeld became an art director at Selznick Pictures. He held the position for about four years, and then in 1924 Hirschfeld moved to Paris to work and lead the Bohemian life. Hirschfeld also grew a beard, necessitated by the exigencies of living in a cold-water flat. This he retained—the beard, not the flat—for the next 75 years, presumably because "you never know when your oil burner will go on the fritz." [9] In addition to Broadway and film, Hirschfeld also drew politicians, TV stars, and celebrities of all stripes from Cole Porter and the Nicholas Brothers to the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation . Hirschfeld also caricatured jazz musicians— Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald—and rockers The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, and Mick Jagger. [10] In 1977 Hirschfeld drew the cover of Aerosmith's Draw the Line album. Hirschfeld drew many original movie posters, which include posters for Charlie Chaplin's films, as well as The Wizard of Oz (1939). The "Rhapsody in Blue" segment in the Disney film Fantasia 2000 was inspired by his designs and Hirschfeld became an artistic consultant for the segment; the segment's director, Eric Goldberg, is a longtime fan of his work. Further evidence of Goldberg's admiration for Hirschfeld can be found in Goldberg's character design and animation of the genie in Aladdin (1992). He was the subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary film, The Line King: The Al Hirschfeld Story (1996). Hirschfeld's final drawing, was a private commission of the Marx Brothers, which he worked on Saturday, January 18th, 2003--it remained at the pencil stage and was on his drawing board when he passed away two days later. In 1943, Hirschfeld married one of Europe's most famous actresses, Dolly Haas. They were married for more than 50 years, and had a daughter, Nina. [9] Hirschfeld is known for hiding Nina's name in most of the drawings he produced after her birth. The name would appear in a sleeve, in a hairdo, or somewhere in the background. As Margo Feiden described it, Hirschfeld engaged in the “harmless insanity,” as he called it, of hiding her name [Nina] at least once in each of his drawings. The number of NINAs concealed is shown by an Arabic numeral to the right of his signature. Generally, if no number is to be found, either NINA appears once or the drawing was executed before she was born. [9] For the first few months after Nina was born, Hirschfeld intended the hidden NINAs to appeal to his circle of friends. But to Hirschfeld's complete surprise, what he hadn't realized, was that the population at large was beginning to spot them, too. When Hirschfeld thought the "gag" was wearing thin among his friends and stopped concealing NINAs in his drawings, letters to the New York Times ranging from "curious" to "furious" pressured Hirschfeld to begin hiding them again. Hirschfeld said it was easier to hide the NINAs than it was to answer all the mail. From time to time Hirschfeld lamented that the gimmick had overshadowed his art. In Hirschfeld's book Show Business is No Business , his art dealer, Margo Feiden, recounts the following story to illustrate what Hirschfeld meant when he referred to the "NINA counting" as a harmless insanity: "The NINA-counting mania was well illuminated when in 1973 an NYU student kept coming back to my Gallery to stare at the same drawing each day for more than a week. The drawing was Hirschfeld's whimsical portrayal of New York's Central Park. When curiosity finally got the best of me, I asked, 'What is so riveting about that one drawing that keeps you here for hours, day after day?' She answered that she had found only 11 of 39 NINAs and would not give up until all were located. I replied that the '39' next to Hirschfeld's signature was the year. Nina was born in 1945." [9] In an interview with The Comics Journal , Hirschfeld confirmed the urban legend that the U.S. Army had used his drawings to train bomber pilots by assigning soldiers to spot the NINAs much as they would spot their targets. Hirschfeld told the magazine he found the idea repulsive, saying he felt his cartoons were being used to help kill people. [ citation needed ] In his 1966 anthology The World of Hirschfeld , he included a drawing of Nina which he titled "Nina's Revenge." That drawing contained no NINAs. There were, however, two ALs and two DOLLYs ("the names of her wayward parents"). [11] Publications. Al Hirschfeld famously contributed to The New York Times for more than seven decades. His work also appeared in The New York Herald Tribune , The Old World , The New Yorker Magazine , Collier's , The American Mercury , TV Guide , Playbill , New York magazine, and Rolling Stone . In 1941, Hyperion Books published Harlem As Seen By Hirschfeld , with text by William Saroyan. [ citation needed ] Hirschfeld's illustrations for the theater were gathered and published yearly in the books, The Best Plays of . (for example, The Best Plays of 1958-1959 ). [ citation needed ] Additional collections of Hirschfeld's illustrations include: Manhattan Oasis , Show Business Is No Business (1951), American Theater , The American Theater as Seen by Al Hirschfeld , The Entertainers (1977), Hirschfeld by Hirschfeld (1979), The World of Al Hirschfeld (1970), The Lively Years, 1920-1973 with text by Brooks Atkinson, Hirschfeld’s World (1981), Show Business is No Business with preface and endnotes by Margo Feiden (1983), A Selection of Limited Edition Etchings and Lithographs with text by Margo Feiden (1983), Art and Recollections From Eight Decades (1991), Hirschfeld On Line (2000), Hirschfeld’s Hollywood (2001), Hirschfeld’s New York (2001), Hirschfeld’s Speakeasies of 1932 with Introduction by Pete Hammill (2003), and Hirschfeld’s British Isles (2005). Hirschfeld collaborated with humorist S. J. Perelman on several publications, including Westward Ha! Or, Around the World in 80 Clichés , a satirical look at the duo's travels on assignment for Holiday magazine. In 1991, the United States Postal Service commissioned Hirschfeld to draw a series of postage stamps commemorating famous American comedians. The collection included drawings of Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Edgar Bergen (with Charlie McCarthy), Jack Benny, Fanny Brice, Bud Abbott, and Lou Costello. He followed that with a collection of silent film stars including Rudolph Valentino, ZaSu Pitts and Buster Keaton. The Postal Service allowed him to include Nina's name in his drawings, waiving their own rule forbidding hidden messages in United States stamp designs. Hirschfeld expanded his audience by contributing to Patrick F. McManus' humor column in Outdoor Life magazine for a number of years. Collections and tributes. Permanent collections of Hirschfeld's work are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. A permanent collection at the Margo Feiden Galleries Ltd. includes seventy-five years of Hirschfeld's original drawings, limited edition lithographs and etchings, and archives. The Martin Beck Theatre, which opened November 11, 1924 at 302 West 45th Street, was renamed to become the Al Hirschfeld Theatre on June 21, 2003. It reopened on November 23, 2003 with a revival of the musical Wonderful Town . Hirschfeld was also honored with a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame. [12] In 2002, Al Hirschfeld was awarded the National Medal of Arts. [13] He was an Honorary Member of the Salmagundi Club. [14] Death. Hirschfeld resided at 122 East 95th Street, in Manhattan. He died, aged 99, of natural causes at his home on January 20, 2003. [ citation needed ] His first wife was Florence Ruth Hobby, and they divorced. In 1943, he married Dolly Haas (1910–1994), the mother of Hirschfeld's daughter Nina. Dolly Haas was a Broadway actress/performer Dolly Haas, and died from ovarian cancer in 1994, aged 84. Citation: "The Al Hirschfeld Century: Portrait of an Artist and His Age." by David Leopold (2015) Hirschfeld's desk, lamp and chair were donated to The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and are on display in the lobby. The Comics Journal Special Edition: Winter 2004: Four Generations of Cartoonists by Al Hirschfeld. I promised you something lighthearted today, so how about the wonderful drawings of Al Hirschfeld? OK, so maybe you’re familiar with Hirschfeld. Maybe you’re seen the documentary on his life and work, The Line King on PBS. Maybe you’ve seen his work in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Maybe you’ve seen the USPS postage stamps featuring his drawings of famous comedians, or, most likely, maybe you’ve just seen his wonderful caricatures of movie, TV and broadway stars, or rock, classical and jazz musicians in the pages of the New York Times and other publications. (Image at left, above, is Myrna Loy and William Powell, in their roles as Nora and Nick Charles, along with their dog, Asta, of course, from The Thin Man , one of my favorite movies from the 1930’s). Maybe you’ve heard about Hirschfeld’s penchant for hiding “NINA”, his daughter’s name, in the lines of his drawings, often several times with a “hint” number penned next to his signature indicating how many times it was worked into that drawing. Maybe you’ve heard the (possibly true) rumor that the US Army would have their bomber pilots look for the hidden”NINA”s as part of their training to pick out hidden enemy targets during WW II. OK, so maybe Hirschfeld is old hat to you, been there seen that, but my suggestion is to look again. Even though you’ve heard it before, just look at his lines . Swooping, swirling and careening across the page like a crazed NY cabbie trying to make time through cross-town traffic, Hirschfeld’s lines look like they were drawn just to be as loopy and wild and zingy as possible, with no thought of actually doing anything. Yet, they define their targets with such succinct clarity that they could not possibly exist for any other purpose than to make those amazing faces . And what faces they are; Hirschfeld’s caricatures stretch the limits of how exaggerated a likeness can be, but do so with an economy of line that would make a master of Chinese ink painting sit up and take notice. Yes, notice his lines and then notice the space where the lines aren’t , the negative space defined by the lines and filled with the most eloquent and meaningful emptiness. So few lines, so much character, both in the character of the person, and the character of the line . There is an “official” site at alhirschfield.com, managed by the gallery that represents his work in New York. The images quality is better, though on the New York Times archive. I list some other resources below. There are also a number of excellent and inexpensive collections of his work. Hirschfeld’s Hollywood: The Film Art of Al Hirschfeld , Hirschfeld’s New York and Hirschfeld , as well as Hirschfeld On Line and an interview in The Comics Journal Special Edition: Winter 2004: Four Generations of Cartoonists (along with Jules Feiffer, Art Spiegelman and Chris Ware). OK, so you think you know Hirschfeld, but have you seen his non-caricature straightforward drawings , such as his Gibson-like portrait (image at left, bottom) of 1920’s Vaudville and film star Betty Compson? No? How about his etchings of his travels in North Africa, his watercolors of Bali, or his illustrations in watercolor and gouache? No? Didn’t think so. Neither had I until just recently. There’s only a smattering of them around, but you can see some of them in an online exhibit on the Library of Congress site. This 2002 exhibit is based on a gift of original drawings given to the Library on its bicentennial. It shows something of Hirschfeld’s other sides as an artist, as well as some of the development of his elegant, and eloquent, lines. Daryl Cagle’s Professional Cartoonist Index. After yesterday’s rant I think I need some cartoons to lighten up, but I’m still feeling snarky enough to want some cartoons with bite , so lets head on over, as I often do, to Daryl Cagle’s Professional Cartoonist Index . For many years now, Cagle has had a presence on the web showcasing the work of professional cartoonists. It started as one of those large compendiums in which there was an attempt to list all of the professional cartoonists who had a presence on the web (a list I don’t think he maintains any more), that had a “front page” of some of the day’s featured editorial cartoonists. Over the years it has evolved into a showcase focusing more and more on editorial cartoons and now serves as a one-stop-shopping location for viewing the current and past work of a long roster of editorial cartoonists. Cagles’s political cartoonists feature used to be on the venerable online magazine Slate , but has since moved over to MSNBC. Slate , meanwhile, has recovered by creating their own political cartoon feature that is very similar in format to the one Cagle established. You may actually find the Slate version easier to deal with. The design of Cagle’s site, unfortunately, is incredibly busy, with banners and lists and ads trying to crowd each other off of every page, but it’s much more full-featured than the Slate cartoon section, and with a little perseverance you can find lots of great stuff. The home page acts a jumping off point for viewing recent cartoons from a number of cartoonists arranged by topic. This is really the highlight of the site and you can waste , er, spend a lot of time here, fascinated not only by the cartoons themselves, but by the comparison of how various cartoonists have tackled the same topic on the same day. At times there can be uncanny similarities between several of them, not because of plagiarism, I think that’s actually rare, but simply because some ideas are just “naturals” and suggest themselves readily in the context of a given situation. You’ll also find interesting variety and strong opinions from both sides of the political fence. For real variety, check in on the “Political Cartoons” page, which features Cagle’s selection for the day’s top cartoons, regardless of topic. On the left side of the page is a long list of American editorial cartoonists. At the bottom of this page, past the banner ads and another chance to view the cartoons by topic, is a list of Canadian and worldwide cartoonists. Like reading newspapers from England, Austraila, France and other places around the globe, viewing political cartoons from other countries can be eye opening. It’s astonishing how insular and self-consumed we can be in America. The rest of the world seems much more aware of what’s going on in the world as a whole. We seem oblivious to anything that doesn’t involve us directly. Cagle is himself a cartoonist and his own work is usually featured on this page. Cagle maintains a blog, Daryl Cagle’s Cartoon Weblog , which you may have seen listed on the lines and colors blogroll. It focuses, logically enough, on editorial cartooning. There is also a page on the site where you can order reprints of political cartoons for a fee, searchable through an extensive database. There is a Teacher Guide, accessible from a link on the home page, that provides lesson plans for using political cartoons in classes on Social Sciences, Art, Journalism and English. Back on the home page, in addition to the long row of topic highlights running down the right side, and the extensive text list of further topics at page bottom, there is a set of “Year in Review” links on the left. These gives you access to collections of cartoons that let you re-live your favorite debacles, disasters and diabolical deeds from recent years. The Comics Journal Special Edition: Winter 2004: Four Generations of Cartoonists by Al Hirschfeld. I promised you something lighthearted today, so how about the wonderful drawings of Al Hirschfeld? OK, so maybe you’re familiar with Hirschfeld. Maybe you’re seen the documentary on his life and work, The Line King on PBS. Maybe you’ve seen his work in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Maybe you’ve seen the USPS postage stamps featuring his drawings of famous comedians, or, most likely, maybe you’ve just seen his wonderful caricatures of movie, TV and broadway stars, or rock, classical and jazz musicians in the pages of the New York Times and other publications. (Image at left, above, is Myrna Loy and William Powell, in their roles as Nora and Nick Charles, along with their dog, Asta, of course, from The Thin Man , one of my favorite movies from the 1930’s). Maybe you’ve heard about Hirschfeld’s penchant for hiding “NINA”, his daughter’s name, in the lines of his drawings, often several times with a “hint” number penned next to his signature indicating how many times it was worked into that drawing. Maybe you’ve heard the (possibly true) rumor that the US Army would have their bomber pilots look for the hidden”NINA”s as part of their training to pick out hidden enemy targets during WW II. OK, so maybe Hirschfeld is old hat to you, been there seen that, but my suggestion is to look again. Even though you’ve heard it before, just look at his lines . Swooping, swirling and careening across the page like a crazed NY cabbie trying to make time through cross-town traffic, Hirschfeld’s lines look like they were drawn just to be as loopy and wild and zingy as possible, with no thought of actually doing anything. Yet, they define their targets with such succinct clarity that they could not possibly exist for any other purpose than to make those amazing faces . And what faces they are; Hirschfeld’s caricatures stretch the limits of how exaggerated a likeness can be, but do so with an economy of line that would make a master of Chinese ink painting sit up and take notice. Yes, notice his lines and then notice the space where the lines aren’t , the negative space defined by the lines and filled with the most eloquent and meaningful emptiness. So few lines, so much character, both in the character of the person, and the character of the line . There is an “official” site at alhirschfield.com, managed by the gallery that represents his work in New York. The images quality is better, though on the New York Times archive. I list some other resources below. There are also a number of excellent and inexpensive collections of his work. Hirschfeld’s Hollywood: The Film Art of Al Hirschfeld , Hirschfeld’s New York and Hirschfeld , as well as Hirschfeld On Line and an interview in The Comics Journal Special Edition: Winter 2004: Four Generations of Cartoonists (along with Jules Feiffer, Art Spiegelman and Chris Ware). OK, so you think you know Hirschfeld, but have you seen his non-caricature straightforward drawings , such as his Gibson-like portrait (image at left, bottom) of 1920’s Vaudville and film star Betty Compson? No? How about his etchings of his travels in North Africa, his watercolors of Bali, or his illustrations in watercolor and gouache? No? Didn’t think so. Neither had I until just recently. There’s only a smattering of them around, but you can see some of them in an online exhibit on the Library of Congress site. This 2002 exhibit is based on a gift of original drawings given to the Library on its bicentennial. It shows something of Hirschfeld’s other sides as an artist, as well as some of the development of his elegant, and eloquent, lines.