On Line

by Al Hirschfeld

(Applause Books). Over 400 Hirschfeld drawings and photographs many never before collected. Includes essays by Whoopi Goldberg, Arthur Miller, Mel Gussow, Kurt Vonnegut, Grace Mirabella, Louise Kerz Hirschfeld and more! Commentary by Hirschfeld throughout.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

346 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Al Hirschfeld was an American caricaturist renowned for his elegant black-and-white portraits of celebrities, Broadway stars, and cultural icons, whose distinctive style, executed in pure line with a crow quill, became instantly recognizable and influential across generations of artists and illustrators. Born in St. Louis to German and Russian Jewish parents, Hirschfeld trained at the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design, later studying in Paris and London, and began his career with commissions for the New York Herald Tribune before moving to The New York Times. Over an eight-decade career, he chronicled virtually every major figure in entertainment, from Broadway actors and film stars to jazz legends, rock musicians, and political personalities, while also contributing illustrations to magazines including TV Guide, Life, The New Yorker, Collier’s, and Rolling Stone, and designing original movie posters for films such as The Wizard of Oz and Charlie Chaplin features. Hirschfeld became famous for hiding his daughter Nina’s name in his drawings, a whimsical tradition that captured public imagination and became a beloved signature of his work. He was married to Dolly Haas, with whom he had Nina, and later to theatre historian Louise Kerz. Hirschfeld’s contributions were widely recognized with lifetime achievement Tony Awards, the National Medal of Arts, a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame, and the renaming of the Martin Beck Theatre on Broadway as the Al Hirschfeld Theatre. His work is preserved in permanent collections at institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, Harvard University, and the New York Public Library, ensuring that his legacy as the preeminent chronicler of twentieth-century American culture endures.

Reviews

[Alex]

For a coffee table book, it's full of insightful analysis about the virtues of Hirschfeld's style: the way it captures but doesn't mock its subjects, how distilled it is, the simplicity and virtuosity of Hirschfeld's line, the way the drawings act as theatrical record and artwork in their own right, the role he played in the theatrical community, the influence of high art and the validity of popular/"low" art, even the importance he placed on his freelancer status after having a bad experience early on as an employer of others (who he apparently paid well even when he couldn't afford to pay himself). Makes a good case for Hirschfeld as a major artist of the 20th century.