These Women

I love learning about the pioneers who came before me

It’s a thrill to publish a book, never gets old. Above is my new book, someone at the bookstore kindly sent me a photo of them as they arrived at the store. I’ll go in soon and hold them in my hands. It was a labor of love to write about these women, I feel so lucky.

Here are some cartoons from a woman I have yet to tell you about. Alice Harvey. She came to New York from Chicago, and started at the magazine very early on, 1925. As you can see, she was classically trained; Harvey was a wonderful artist

My husband and I collect New Yorker cartoons, old and new. Sometimes you can find them on eBay for not a lot of money, and we have been lucky. Some are gifts, and we trade with our colleagues. Here, in our collection, is Harvey’s first captioned cartoon in The New Yorker from October 24th, 1925.

And above is what it looked like when it was printed in the magazine. I wonder why she used red in the original. But you see she used charcoal, and in the framed piece you can really examine the detail and the draughstmanship. Below is a painting she did that became a New Yorker cover. Beautiful.

Many of the artists in The New Yorker in the early days were classically trained like Harvey, but there were a number who weren’t, and the “cartoony” style was there all along, just not pervasive. Having worked at the magazine for 42 years, and watched the evolution of the art closely all those years, it’s fascinating to me to see how styles change. There are new styles in cartooning now, and not many draw like Harvey anymore, although I imagine some of us could if we wanted to! Not sure I could.

Alice Harvey looks like someone I would have enjoyed knowing.

My new book can be ordered, it’s in the store (!) and I will be signing copies as long as requests come in. Just go to this link, and you can order a personalized one.