Frederick L. Packer, From Art Nouveau to Political Cartooning

Frederick Little Packer (1886-1956), about whom little can be found on the Internet, was an illustrator, later a political cartoonist.

Available on-line illustrations are mostly of a 1920 series he did for the Vivadou cosmetics firm's Mavis series.  Several of those advertisements are shown below.

Also shown is Packer's editorial cartoon that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1952.

Note the extreme stylistic difference.  As it happened, editorial cartooning was probably a lot more steady source of income than advertising art for Packer, so I can't really blame him for making the switch in 1932 when the great Depression was at its worst.

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"September," part of the 1920 Mavis advertising campaign.

This is Packer's Pulitzer Prize winner.  Hard to believe the same artist did both.

More Mavis ads ...

Bruno Paul's Illustrations

Bruno Paul (1874-1968) was an artistic all-rounder, something seldom seen in today's world of specialization.  According to his Wikipedia entry, he was an architect, interior and furniture designer, as well as an illustrator -- his illustrations being the subject of this post.

Wikipedia mentions: "Trained as a painter in the [Bavarian] royal academy just as the Munich Secession developed against academic art, he first came to prominence as a cartoonist and illustrator in the German fin de siècle magazine Jugend, and in the satirical Simplicissimus from 1897 through 1906, in the years where its criticism of Wilhelm II brought prosecutions from the government."

From that, it isn't hard to guess that Paul's satirical illustrations were largely anti-bourgeoisie and anti-military.

Paul's style is very much of his time, with an Expressionist feeling touched with Art Nouveau.  I find these drawings ugly, but that might have been one of Paul's intentions.

Images below are presented in no particular order.  Many have captions containing dialog, but as found on the Internet, most were in small German type and were largely unreadable.  In some cases, I've translated the cartoon's title.

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Simplicissimus cover illustrated by Paul.  The title is "Art in Wiesbaden."

"High Season."

"Munich Spring Picture."

"English Civilization."

"Power on Places" - Pleitze is an obscure word not found in my large German-English dictionary, so the true meaning might differ.

This title is obscure to me.

"The New Volunteer Firemen's Commander."

Another tricky title that seems to refer to a painter of a wife.  Or maybe a wife who kibitzes the painter.  That unreadable caption might makes things clear.

"Noble Worldview."

"From Good Family."

"Out of Hamburg."  This refers to emigrants leaving Germany.

James Thurber, Writer and Nearly-Blind Part-Time Cartoonist

James Grover Thurber (1894-1961) called his New Yorker cartoons "doodles." Which they were, in the sense that he was essentially a writer who did cartooning on the side. Plus, he was going blind.

Some biographical information is here, and details along with informed speculation regarding his eye condition is here.

Thurber had one eye injured by an arrow in an accident when he was a boy. That eye had to be removed. His other eye developed problems and his vision began to deteriorate as he entered his forties. Eventually he was declared legally blind.

I don't have dates for the cartoons displayed below. By their appearance, I assume that they were mostly drawn before his eye condition had progressed very far.

Bottom line regarding Thurber: He should not be judged using professional criteria.

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"He doesn't know anything except facts."

"I have a Neurosis."

"Where did you get those big brown eyes and that tiny mind?"

"Well it makes a difference to me."

"What have you done with Dr. Millmoss?"

"Is this man annoying you, dear?"

"You said a moment ago that everybody you look at seems to be a rabbit.  Now just what do you mean by that, Mrs. Sprague?"

Anatol Kovarsky's Cartoons About Art

Anatol Kovarsky (1919-2016) was born in post-revolutionary Russia, lived in Poland and France until 1941, then was able to escape to the USA. He became a cartoonist for The New Yorker magazine, later concentrating on painting. Some biographical information can be found here, though you will have to scroll down to find it.

Given The New Yorker's method of supplying cartoon ideas to its cartoonists, it can be difficult to be sure which ideas came from the artist and which from others. That said, Kovarsky cartoons had a unique "feel" to them, so I suspect many or even most ideas were his own.

Art was a major subject for him. Below are examples.

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Now for two cartoons that might be considered politically questionable nowadays ... enjoy!

Robert Weber, New Yorker Cartoonist

Robert Maxwell Weber (1924-2016) was a New Yorker magazine cartoonist for many years, though his professional career began as a fashion illustrator -- unusual for a cartoonist. He probably didn't realize at the time what a wise career move that was, because fashion illustration began to give way to photography in the 1960s whereas the New Yorker continues to feature cartoons.

For more information on Weber you might link here and here.

Weber's style was sketchy, and done often using charcoal sometimes supported by wash. I suppose he might be rated as an above-average New Yorker cartoonist (its cartoons were well above the general average). But he did not achieve the fame of members of the previous New Yorker generation such as Charles Addams and Peter Arno.

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"In a way I am kind of famous.  But you've probably never heard of me unless you happen to travel in actuarial circles."
I happen to be a demographer, a distant cousin of actuarial work. Makes me wonder how famous I am.

"These projected figures are a figment of our imagination.  We hope you like them."
As the author of a book on population forecasting, this cartoon also hits home.

"You've been very bad, so we're sending you back to New York."
Oh so true.

"Billy is turning out to be quite the little artist."

"Do you mind if I say something helpful about your personality?"

"I'm back.  The Brie's not ripe."

Women's Eyes by Kees van Dongen and Russell Patterson

I wrote about Dutch Modernist painter Kees van Dongen (1877-1968) here, and American cartoonist Russell Patterson (1893-1977) here.

Some of their works exhibit a certain similarity. Namely, from time to time they depicted young women as having extremely mascaraed eyes. Patterson did this a lot more than did van Dongen because his job required cranking out a much larger volume of images.

Van Dongen got there first -- his mascaraed lovelies began to appear around 1910, whereas Patterson's were a Jazz Age and Depression-era thing. So: Did Patterson borrow from van Dongen? I do not know: probably no one does. But living and working in New York City starting in the mid-1920s, it's possible that he might have seen some van Dongen paintings or perhaps images of them in publications.

Let's take a look:

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Van Dongen: La femme en blanc - 1912

Van Dongen: The Blue Hat - 1910

Van Dongen: La Coquelicot - c. 1919

Patterson sketch

Patterson illustration

Patterson illustration

John Held, Jr.'s Woodcut Style

John Held, Jr. (1889-1958) was one of my favorite cartoonists when I was young. I even did a variation of his style while on the staff of my high school yearbook. In retrospect, Russell Patterson was his equal, perhaps his superior, in capturing the 1920s Jazz Age in cartoons.

Held's Wikipedia entry is here, and here is my 2014 post dealing with him.

As my post indicated, there was more to Held than 1920s flappers and sheiks. An aspect of his work that I find curious is the set of woodcut (and woodcut-like) cartoons he made for the New Yorker magazine and perhaps other venues. One curiosity is that the subject matter -- 1900-vintage, not sophisticated 1920s and 30s New York City settings -- always struck me as not in synch with the New Yorker's character. I suspect that the reasons they appeared at all was because (a) Held was famous, and (b) he and New Yorker editor Harold Ross were high school friends in Salt Lake City.

Held must have liked doing wood/linoleum cuts, and justified the historic subject matter as in keeping with the medium.  Also, there was strong contrast with the style of his cartoons dealing with current (Jazz Age) subjects.

And me? I do not like them. But maybe you might, so here are some examples:

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The set above includes the woodcut style and the cartoon style for which Held is famous.

Anna Held once famously had a milk bath.  This seems to be a scratchboard simulation of a woodcut (note his signature).

Held was Mormon.