CELEBRITY CARICATURE IN AMERICA.

Reaves, Wendy Wick. Pie Friendly (research assistant). Alan Fern (Foreword).

ISBN 10: 0300074638 / ISBN 13: 9780300074635

Published by Washington, DC; New Haven, CT and London: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution in association with Yale University Press, 1998., 1998

Second printing. xiv, 306 pages. Hardcover: H 28.5cm x L 23.5cm. Dust jacket rubbed with minor soiling, a few nicks at edges, short tear at head of rear flap fold. Dark red boards. Non-authorial birthday gift inscription faintly visible in pencil at top of front free endpaper. Interior pages are otherwise bright and clean. Binding is firm. A very good copy in a very good dust jacket. Published as the accompanying catalogue for an exhibition held at the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery from April 10 to August 23, 1998. With color and b/w illustrations throughout including frontispiece, Director's Foreword by Alan Fern, Preface, Acknowledgements, Lenders to the Exhibition, Notes, Bibliography, and Index. Features ten chapters within four parts: PART 1 INTRODUCTION; {1} "A Vivid Interpretation," {2} "The Spirit of Caricature," PART 2 THE PIONEERS; {3} "Carlo de Fornaro: Introducing the Intelligent Line," {4} "Marcus de Zayas: Spotlight on Personality," {5} "Al Frueh: The Quintessential Summary," PART 3 THE VOGUE FOR CELEBRITY CARICATURE; {6} "Ralph Barton: The Observer and the Observed," {7} "Miguel Covarrubias: Caricature and Modernism in Vanity Fair," {8} "Around the Town: The Caricature Profession," PART 4 THE CLIMAX OF THE CARICATURE ERA; {9} "Art Deco Color in Vanity Fair," and {10} "A Spicy and Clairvoyant Comment." Please note that this large book has an approximate shipping weight of 4.5 pounds (2 kg) and will require additional postage for any postal class other than domestic Media Mail. ISBN 0300074638. Seller Inventory # PXZP-14009

Synopsis:

Mae West, George Gershwin, the Marx Brothers, Babe Ruth - these were just a few of the celebrities caricatured in popular American periodicals during the first half of the 20th century. This book presents hundreds of these rediscovered drawings and introduces a type of portraiture based on modern design and a preoccupation with personality-based fame. Wendy Wick Reaves explores the roots of celebrity caricature in the pre-World War I culture of New York and charts its growth into a fad during the 1920s and 1930s. She tells how caricatures of the famous permeated the press - "Vanity Fair", the "New Yorker", the "New York World" and other periodicals - and appeared as well on silk dresses, theatre curtains and cigarette cases. She recounts the careers of many of the masters of the art, including Al Hirschfeld, Miguel Covarrubias, Al Frueh, Ralph Barton and Marius de Zayas, and shows how their stylized portraits of the famous reveal the roots of a celebrity culture in which, as gossip columnist Walter Winchell pointed out, social position was "more a matter of press than prestige". Reaves contends that this modern caricature - with its abbreviation, provocation, wit, figural distortion and dissonant colour contrasts - was a type of portraiture that captures the essence of the times and influenced other arts. Celebrity caricature had appeal to an audience hungry for emblems of the emerging urban culture. This book accompanies the first comprehensive exhibition on celebrity caricature, which will open at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, USA in April 1998.

Bibliographic Details

Title: CELEBRITY CARICATURE IN AMERICA.
Publisher: Washington, DC; New Haven, CT and London: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution in association with Yale University Press, 1998.
Publication Date: 1998
Binding: Hardcover
Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included