"Everybody looks interesting in a Hirschfeld drawing"
July 1, 2018 2:21 PM   Subscribe

Al Hirschfeld was an American caricaturist best known for his black and white portraits of Broadway stars and other celebrities. Born in 1903, his career, spanning over 80 years and consisting of thousands of works, made him famous for drawings that were often said to look more like the person they pictured than the actual person himself. His linear calligraphic style captured the essences the people, plays and movies he drew.

With few exceptions, his illustrations appeared on the The New York Times drama pages every Sunday for over 70 years. Unwilling to disturb other playgoers, he perfected a technique for sketching in the dark, using shorthand notations, and drawing pictures in his pocket.

Although probably best known as the unofficial chronicler of Broadway from the 1930s through the early 2000s, Hirschfeld also designed many original movie posters, sketched films and TV shows, and drew politicians, musicians, writers, composers and other celebrities. He is most identified with his style of simply using solid lines, with few or no tones or textures.

After his daughter, Nina, was born, Hirschfeld began slipping his daughter Nina's name subtly into his drawings. When he once stopped including the NINAs, he received so many letters that he went back to including them. He said it was easier to hide the NINAs than it was to answer all the mail. Following a suggestion in one of the letters, he began including the number of NINAs to the right of his signature in each drawing.

The Line King: The Al Hirschfeld Story was released in 1996 and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary (short excerpt).

The Martin Beck Theatre on Broadway was renamed to the Al Hirschfeld Theatre on June 21, 2003 (five months after he died), on what would have been his 100th birthday.

What makes Hirschfeld special is the sheer joy in his work. “Everybody looks interesting in a Hirschfeld drawing,” Arthur Miller once wrote, “because Hirschfeld found everybody to be interesting". In an industry reputed to be filled with cynicism, distrust and bitter rivalries, Hirschfeld had a talent to locate the joy in the performers that he drew.

A small selection of drawings:
Leonard Bernstein
Star Trek
Some Like it Hot
Elvis Presley
famous self-portrait
George Gershwin
Duke Ellington
My Fair Lady (album cover)
William Shakespeare
Yul Brynner in The King and I
Bogart and Bacall in To Have and Have Not
Pas de Deux
The Beatles
Josephine Baker
Seinfeld
Mikhail Baryshnikov
Jack Lemmon
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Louis Armstrong
Stephen Sondheim
Mick Jagger
The Music Man
John Lithgow
a few more
posted by still_wears_a_hat (17 comments total) 33 users marked this as a favorite
 
I always loved looking for the Ninas! Thanks for posting!
posted by sundrop at 2:43 PM on July 1, 2018 [4 favorites]


As an ink illustrator I was so happy to see the originals at the big show of his work at the NY-HS for two reasons

They’re five times the size of the printed result

They’re COVERED in correction fluid.
posted by The Whelk at 3:03 PM on July 1, 2018 [42 favorites]


It wasn't Sunday in my home growing up without fresh bagels and cream cheese from the bagel shop in the village, coffee for the grown-ups and fresh-squeezed juice or hot cocoa for me and my brother, and the Nina Hunt in the Sunday Times.
posted by tzikeh at 3:16 PM on July 1, 2018 [5 favorites]


Aerosmith -- the first introduction to Hirschfeld for many midwestern kids.
posted by Silvery Fish at 3:35 PM on July 1, 2018 [5 favorites]


One of the things I admired about Hirshfeld was how he somehow maintained his talent and wit even when he was over a century old. I remember reading some interview circa 2001 where he was telling funny stories about his early days drawing posters for Chaplin movies, and he said something like, "New York was never the same after all the cars came in." He was a working artist in the 21st century, reminiscing about city life before automobiles!
posted by Ursula Hitler at 3:53 PM on July 1, 2018 [13 favorites]




I remember leaning about the Ninas when I was a kid. Maybe my first glimpse into the ways art could hide things.
posted by doctornemo at 5:25 PM on July 1, 2018


When I did a community theater production of Tribute (Bernard Slade) back in the late 90s I got a local artist to do Hirshfeld pastiches for the poster and program. I've loved his style for literally decades. He felt retro even while he was doing new work, which I believe is a sign that your style is going to live on in public consciousness forever.
posted by hippybear at 6:35 PM on July 1, 2018 [2 favorites]


Disney’s Fantasia 2000 includes a magnificent sequence set to George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”. The animation is clearly inspired by Hirshfeld’s work.
posted by New Frontier at 7:02 PM on July 1, 2018 [6 favorites]


I saw Fantasia 2000 in a true IMAX (5-story tall screen) theater while tripping balls on good quality LSD. The Gershwin segment charmed me entirely because I'd performed Rhapsody In Blue for my high school senior piano recital and their version, while truncated, was well performed. The Firebird segment, however, had me so involved that at one certain point (which would be obvious to anyone who has seen it) I stood up and shouted, and I was the only one, but hey.. LSD and IMAX. What do you expect?
posted by hippybear at 7:12 PM on July 1, 2018 [7 favorites]


His version of Jadzia Dax from DS9 is kind of hypnotic.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:47 PM on July 1, 2018 [3 favorites]


He was truly extraordinary. That Bogart & Bacall is ... sublime.
posted by chavenet at 2:09 AM on July 2, 2018 [1 favorite]


As a little kid in early-80s New York, Trying to guess the subject(s) and looking for the Nina’s on Sunday mornings was a part of childhood I took utterly for granted.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 7:27 AM on July 2, 2018


Disney's Genie in Aladdin was inspired by Hirschfeld and the NYPL performing arts branch in Lincoln Center has his barber chair on permanent display.
posted by brujita at 10:53 AM on July 2, 2018 [2 favorites]


I'm sad that most of those are too low resolution to really pick out the NINAs in.
posted by tavella at 10:58 AM on July 2, 2018 [1 favorite]


It's amazing that he could convey so much emotion in so few lines.
posted by Sphinx at 1:16 PM on July 2, 2018 [1 favorite]


It was nice of him to put my name in his drawings. I felt special for decades. But seriously, his art was a joy to look at.
posted by acrasis at 1:57 PM on July 2, 2018 [4 favorites]


« Older The World Cup’s Mysterious Path to Russia   |   Winner of The White Review Short Story Prize for... Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments