at The New Yorker
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Garrett Price (1896-1979) was a major American cartoonist, having contributed innumerable gags to The New Yorker, as well as having drawn the cult favorite adventure comic strip "White Boy". But he certainly would not have been typecast as a comedian. His wry humor did not evoke guffaws, and in appearance he was short and retiring, usually with a sketchbook in hand. Price was essentially an idea-man, quietly observing human behavior and settings for pictures which could end up on exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Watercolor Society, the Chicago Institute, or on the cover of The New Yorker, which they did, 99 times from its inception in 1925 through the 1960s. Price was a westerner from Bucyrus, Kansas, schooled at the University of Wyoming, and studied art at the Chicago Art Institute. As a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, he established his habit of carrying a sketchbook to make notes for potential cartoons and illustrations. Later, by becoming a freelancer, he was able to work for a wider audience, including Scribner's, College Humor, and Collier's, as well as The New Yorker. The town of Westport, Connecticut was a natural attraction to Price, and he joined other New Yorker artist residents Perry Barlow, James Daugherty, Edna Eike, Tom Funk, Alice Harvey, and Whitney Darrow, Jr. Several of the artists formed an informal sketch club, posing for each other, and forming long-lasting friendships. Price was especially close to Westporter Harry Beckhoff, and when they both died in 1979, the Westport Arts Council sponsored a retrospective exhibit of their work, "Two Old Friends." Illustration House is pleased to present a group of Price's proposed New Yorker cover ideas, demonstrating his fertile imagination, his fresh take on the familiar, and his experiments with pattern and palette. These drawings are roughly the size of the printed covers, and are executed in a variety of media. They come from the artist's estate, and are priced about a fifth as much as the finished, published works. -- Walt Reed |
