AL HIRSCHFELD - New York Public Library

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LineKingTALheHIRSCHFELDAT THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARYOCTOBER 15, 2013 THROUGH JANUARY 4, 2014THE DONALD AND MARY OENSLAGER GALLERY THE SHELBY CULLOM DAVIS MUSEUM NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS DOROTHY AND LEWIS B. CULLMAN CENTER

During our marriage, I had the unique experienceof seeing a Hirschfeld drawing before it hit thenewsstands, of being present during The Process, atthe drawing board, and before the NINAS were hidden.Before our marriage, however, I had already been akeen as well as a professional observer of the art ofAl Hirschfeld - albeit without the luxury of proximity.I was a theatre historian, and Al Hirschfeld was anessential, at times a definitive, original resource inthe history of the American stage. Long before videocameras, it was Al doing the accurate recording ofour greatest shows.The first drawing of his I really studied was one commissioned by my first husband,Leo Kerz, for his Broadway production of Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros in 1961.After that dramatic start I always returned toTHE LINE KING’S LIBRARY is filled withThat’s the one where Zero Mostel transformed into the title character - a snorting,Hirschfeld’s work to assist me in my researchresearch from the archives of theatre, music,pawing, giant wild pachyderm. He did it right on stage without benefit of specialfor museum exhibitions and televisiondance and literature. Enjoy your explorationmakeup or special effects and terrorized his poor, shaking co-star Eli Wallach nightprograms. Because of his incredible attentionof those hidden treasures. Thanks to talentedafter night, literally tossing him about the stage. But it was Al Hirschfeld’s equallyto visual detail and near photographic eye,archaeologists David Leopold and Barbararemarkable theatrical art that, fortunately, captured the moment - in all its ferocityHirschfeld’s drawings provide a wealthCohen Stratyner for leading the hunt.and power and originality - for posterity.of visual history not only of the theatrebut of American cultural life. Since his artThe scene was naturally the highlight of the play and since I worked on theruns like connective tissue through nineproduction, I got to witness it at many performances. Knowing the original as welldecades, his drawings are sociologically asLOUISE KERZ HIRSCHFELDas I did. I couldn’t help marveling at the way Hirschfeld had encapsulated it in a linewell as aesthetically indispensable. In fact,President, The Al Hirschfeld Foundationdrawing, like some kind of visual shorthand, catching not only the look but the highdrama of the moment. Hirschfeld’s accuracy of theatrical detail is by now legendary,but he also seemed to have some mysterious knowledge of the playwright’sintentions. Like a clairvoyant with a pen instead of a crystal ball.2ABOVEZero Mostel andEli Wallach in RhinocerosInk on board, 1961a Hirschfeld is often more revealing than acamera, because of the drawing’s flair andAdapted from “ Looking Over His Shoulder”,fluidity of movement, and added dimensionfirst published in Hirschfeld On Lineover mere photography or videography.(Applause 1999)3

FAR LEFT42 Street withChristine Ebersole,Michael Cumpsty, andKate LeveringLithograph, 2001ndLEFTJack LemmonPublished 1979BELOWDolly Haas andNina HirschfeldPhoto by Peter Baschc. 1953THE LINE KINGAl Hirschfeld’s career began at Goldwyn Pictures in 1920 across thestreet from the 42nd Street branch of the New York Public Library, andover the next nine decades, Hirschfeld and the Library became evencloser. Hirschfeld availed himself of the Library’s book and picturecollections, he attended its events, and was a lifelong supporter.He encouraged Billy Rose to support the Library’s burgeoning theatrecollection, and suggested to others that they give their collections tothe Library.Over the years, the Library has collected original Hirschfeld drawings,paintings, and prints, and its shelves are filled with books andpublications featuring Hirschfeld artwork (including fifty years of theBest Plays series), as well as posters, album covers, and all mannerof ephemera. His barber chair and drawing table, where he createdvirtually all of his work, now greet visitors to the New York PublicLibrary for the Performing Arts on the plaza of Lincoln Center.THE LINE KING’S LIBRARY showcases the richness of the Library’sHirschfeld collection, as well as the ubiquity of Hirschfeld’s artworkover his eighty-two year career and beyond.45

LEFTRhythm Series - CakewalkLithograph, 1970RIGHTRhythm Series - CharlestonLithograph, 1970The name Al Hirschfeld (1903 – 2003) has virtually been synonymouswith Broadway since his first theatrical drawing was published inDecember 1926. But by then, he was a six-year veteran of moviestudio publicity and art departments, having already worked forGoldwyn, Universal, Pathé, Selznick, Fox, First National, and WarnerBrothers. “I lived in the movies,” he says of his early years, and itwas in films that he discovered his gift of caricature. Hirschfeldsupplied iconic artwork for posters, programs, heralds, trade ads,and billboards, for every studio in Hollywood from The Cabinet ofDr. Caligari to Gangs of New York. In his film art, Hirschfeld beganto explore how each line of his drawings had to create a visuallycompelling work that attracted attention in the briefest possibleinterval. He learned to purify the pictorial detail of his drawings andquickly gained a confident authority.Hirschfeld’s caricatures debuted during the genre’s vogue in the1920s, but in little more than a decade he towered over the field.His style stands as one of the most innovative efforts in establishingthe visual language of modern art through caricature in the20th century. Instead of relying on simple recognition, he employed apalette of graphic symbols to translate the action of the whole bodyinto line drawings that have become the lingua franca of generationsof actors and audiences. The best loved of these symbols is NINA, hisdaughter’s name which he began began hiding within his work in 1945.67

“ Line as movement prancing, skipping,twisting and dancing,”according to critic Michael Kimmelman, “was the vehicle throughwhich Hirschfeld conveyed the adrenaline rush of live theaterand his absorption in the here and now, resulting in art that lookseternally, uncannily fresh.”At the age of twenty, Hirschfeld took a studio on West Forty-secondStreet with the newly arrived Miguel Covarrubias and was bitten bythe bug of caricature that Covarrubias had brought from his nativeMexico. Hirschfeld’s friendship with John Held Jr., who literallyinvented the look of the Jazz Age in his drawings, was just as crucialin the young artist’s development. Held’s thin line was an importantingredient in Hirschfeld’s early caricatures, and Held’s success andits attendant responsibilities left a lasting impression on Hirschfeld.ABOVE RIGHTAmerican Ballet Theatrewith Alexander Godunuv,Martine Von Hamel,Anthony Dowell, NataliaMakarova, Fernado Bujones,and Cynthia GregoryPublished May 4, 1980BELOW RIGHTRhythm Series Pas De DeuxLithograph, 1970FAR RIGHTLeonard BernsteinPublication date unknown89

LEFTMartha GrahamLithograph, c. 1969BELOWFanny Brice and GeorgeJessel heading the stageshow at the ParamountPublished December 4, 1932RIGHTThe Play About The Babywith Marian Seldes, BrianMurray, Kathleen Early,and David BurtkaLithograph, 2001A ten-month stay on the island of Bali in 1932 would cementHirschfeld’s interest in the graphic possibilities of line. “It was in Balithat my attraction to drawing blossomed into an enduring love affairwith line.” Enchanted by the dramatic shadows of Javanese puppetsand the art of the island, Hirschfeld’s sympathetic reaction to thisenvironment instilled a belief that caricature expressed the magic of achild’s world. When he returned to New York, the spotlight replacedthe dramatic sunlight of Bali in Hirschfeld’s pictures. He gave up easelpainting altogether and focused on what interested him most: imagein pure line.Hirschfeld looked with an artist’s eye but with a journalist’s intentto capture the magic of performance. One of Hirschfeld’s greatestchallenges was to avoid “creating stereotyped drawings of stereotypedsubjects.” Appearing regularly in the paper (as well as many otherpublications) was a sign of success, but the ubiquity came with aprice: Hirschfeld had to reinvent himself for each drawing in order toremain fresh. A playwright may have to come up with a new angle forhis work every season; Hirschfeld had to do it every week. With thetheater, an art form that included scores of handsome leading men,attractive leading ladies, young ingénues, earnest love interests, tragicheroines, and dastardly villains, etc., his subject remained more or lessthe same, but Hirschfeld’s response did not. One drawing might be acomplex composition with a cast of characters, and the next might be1011

a minimal portrait of a single performer, followed by a work definedby light and shadow, before another drawing with vigorous crosshatching and suggestive brushwork. Hirschfeld created his owngraphic problems, but always in service of his subject.His embrace of the moment has kept his work from being dated.“The work never happens in the past tense,” says Jules Feiffer.Look at what’s on Broadway today The Glass Menagerie, Chicago,Pippin, Romeo and Juliet, The Phantom of the Opera, Mamma Mia!Annie, The Trip to the Bountiful, The Winslow Boy, and Cinderella —all drawn by Hirschfeld in one production or another. Now look atthis exhibition whether at the art physically on the walls or digitallythroughout the installation, you might be forgiven if you thinkhe’s drawing this season. The current Tony Best Musical, KinkyBoots, plays at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre (potions of the dedicationceremony can be seen in the exhibition), so he remains a presenceon Broadway.We hope this exhibition works much like a Hirschfeld drawingin that you gain insight and leave with a smile. As the playwrightWilliam Saroyan wrote in 1941, “I like everything of Hirschfeld’sI’ve seen. I don’t know why and I know I don’t need to know why. Ilike people like Hirschfeld because they’re the best, and I like whatthey do because they can’t help it and only want you to be happy.”DAVID LEOPOLDDavid Leopold is an author and curator who has organizedexhibitions for institutions around the world. He has been thearchivist of Al Hirschfeld’s work for more than two decades.To learn more about Al Hirschfeld and his work, please visitwww.AlHirschfeldFoundation.org or follow it on Twitter @AlHirschfeld. Please visit www.nypl.org to learn more about theLibrary collections and services.12TOP RIGHTABOVEABOVEMy Fair Ladywith George Bernard Shaw,Rex Harrison,and Julie AndrewsPublished 1956The Iceman Comethwith Jason RobardsOffset lithograph, 1960Broadway RhythmTrade advertisement, 194313

CREDITS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe Line King’s Library: Al Hirschfeld and The New York Public Library is a project ofThe New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Jacqueline Z. Davis, Barbara G.and Lawrence A. Fleischman Executive Director; Barbara Cohen-Stratyner, Judy R. andAlfred A. Rosenberg Curator of Exhibitions; and The Al Hirschfeld Foundation, Louise KerzHirschfeld, President. The exhibit was developed and curated by Al Hirschfeld FoundationArchivist David Leopold and Barbara Cohen-Stratyner, with the staff of the Shelby CullomDavis Museum, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts: Caitlin Whittington,Designer; and René Ronda and Dennessa Usher, Installers. Gallery media developed withMichael Diekmann, Manager of Play-Back and Inter-actives. Conservator: Grace Owen.Public programming for the project was developed by Cheryl Raymond, Manager of PublicPrograms, and David Callahan, Reserve Film & Video Collection.BELOWMen In WhiteInk on board, c. 1971of original 1933 GroupTheatre productionArtifacts in the exhibition are from the research and circulating divisions of The New YorkPublic Library for the Performing Arts. We thank The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collectionof English and American Literature at The New York Public Library, for allowing the displayof S. J. Perelman artifacts in the gallery. We are grateful to the many staff members of thePerforming Arts Library for their contributions to the project and aid in locating so muchwonderful material drawn, designed or illustrated by Hirschfeld. We also thank theAl Hirschfeld Foundation assistants Paul Chapman and Katherine Marshall, who did somuch legwork in the Hirschfeld archives.We are grateful to the following for permission to use exhibition video in the gallery: for CarolChanning video: Ghost Light Films and THIRTEEN Productions LLC in association withWNET; for excerpts from Theatre Talk: CUNY TV’s Spotlight show; special thanks to AdamWalker and Bob Isaacson; for excerpts from the TOFT interview of Hirschfeld by Brendan Gill:Permission granted by Louise Kerz Hirschfeld, President of The Al Hirschfeld Foundation.For permission to include excerpts from Theatre on Film and Tape Archive, New York PublicLibrary for the Performing Arts coverage of the re-naming of the Al Hirschfeld Theater,we thank the member organizations of the Coalition of Broadway Unions and Guilds:Actors’ Equity Association; American Federation of Musicians, Local 802; Association ofTheatrical Press Agents and Managers, Local 18032; Dramatists Guild; International Allianceof Theatrical Stage Employees, International; Makeup Artists - Hair Stylists Union Local798; Motion Picture Projectionists, Operators, Video Technicians, Theatrical Employees &Allied Crafts, Local 306; Stage Directors and Choreographers Society; Service EmployeesInternational Union, Local 32BJ Theatre Division; Theatrical Protective Union Stage Hands,Local 1; Theatrical Wardrobe Union, Local 764; Treasurers & Ticket Sellers Union, Local 751;and United Scenic Artists, Local 829The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts gratefully acknowledges the leadershipsupport of Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman. Additional support for exhibitions has been providedby Judy R. and Alfred A. Rosenberg and the Miriam and Harold Steinberg Foundation.David Leopold’s curatorial work is sponsored by The Al Hirschfeld Foundation.Material in the exhibition and brochure are in the collections ofThe New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The Al Hirschfeld Foundation. www.AlHirschfeldFoundation.org. All rights reserved.Al Hirschfeld is represented by The Margo Feiden Gallery, New York.1415

PUBLIC PROGRAMSTHURSDAYOctober 24 at 6:0 p.m.LIGHT AND LINE: DEPICTING PERFORMINGCurators Barbara Cohen-Stratyner andDavid Leopold look at the illustrators andphotographers who covered Broadway andpopular entertainment in the 20th century,and how they used black and white to createour memories.Man and Supermanwith George Bernard Shawmanipulating MauriceEvans and Frances Rowe.First published October 12,1947 and later used on theshow’s poster.THURSDAYNovember 14 at 6:00 p.m.HIRSCHFELD’S HOLLYWOODThe name Al Hirschfeld has virtually beensynonymous with Broadway since his firsttheatrical drawing was published in December1926. But by then he was a six-year veteran ofmovie studio publicity and art departments,having already worked for Goldwyn, Universal,Pathé, Selznick, Fox, First National, and WarnerBrothers. Hirschfeld archivist David Leopoldwill trace Hirschfeld’s nine decades of film art,followed by a curatorial tour of the exhibition.MONDAYNovember 18 at 6:00 p.m.THE LINE KING:THE AL HIRSCHFELD STORY1996, 87 minutesDirected by Susan Dryfoos,who will present at the screening.This Oscar-nominated documentary is a portraitof Al Hirschfeld featuring rare home movies,special appearances by his celebrity subjects,and interviews with his late wife Dolly Haas, anddaughter Nina. The artist emerges as a brilliant,delightful, quirky, and compassionate observerof humanity.Bruno Walter Auditorium111 Amsterdam Avenuewww.nypl.org/lpaPrograms take place in the Bruno Walter Auditorium.Admission to all LPA programs is free and on a firstcome, first served basis. Doors open 30 minutes prior toeach program unless otherwise noted.All programs are subject to last minute change orcancellation. For the latest information, visit us online atwww.nypl.org/events/programs/lpa or call orgwww.nypl.org/lpa

to capture the magic of performance. One of Hirschfeld’s greatest . challenges was to avoid “creating stereotyped drawings of stereotyped subjects.” Appearing regularly in the paper (as well as many other publicat

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