Volume 16–1.pdf

Raul Julia,
"Threepenny Opera: .
George Bums and Carol Channing
(date unknown).
regularly collaborated with John
O'Hara, but Hirschfeld was somewhat
disillusioned with this: "His
column, Appointment with O'Hara,
was terrible. Not that O'Hara was a
bad writer, but these things were
really unreadable. Yet they were
apparently so popular with the
readers that they raised my fee
without me even having to ask:'
Sinecure with The New York Times
came in the '30s when the uncompromising
Sunday Editor, Lester
Markel, who was annoyed that the
artist appeared elsewhere with
such frequency, approached Hirschfeld
and said, "We're beginning to
look like all the other papers. We
would like it if you'd just work for
us:' "So I said, well, all you've got to
do is cross my palm with silver and
I'm your fella. In fact I much preferred
to work for the Times,
because in those years the other
papers didn't pay for the drawings;
the press agent or producer did. I
didn't have full control, and always
felt corrupted by that in some way."
11
About his decidedly original
drawings (made even more distinctive
by the camouflaged name of his
daughter, Nina, strategically placed
in every drawing) Hirschfeld says: "I
try to communicate to the reader
pretty much what the play is about,
if it's possible. If not, just some kind
of witty juxtaposition of lines in
itself is reason enough for the drawing:'
But Hirschfeld admits that in
the early days, "I don't know why,
the Times ever printed my drawings.
When I look back it was pretty daring,
since it wasn't in their spirit at
all:' Fifty years is a long time for
people to get used to a radical
approach. "Apparently it's been
accepted;' he says modestly, "and
it's almost become conventional by
now." This, of course, is an understatement.
His art is so indelible
that one cannot think of Broadway
without conjuring up the curvilinear
magic of Al Hirschfeld.
The Margo Feiden Gallery in New York City has
a collection spanning over 60 years— the life's
work — of Al Hirschfeld.
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