Hirschfeld, Al

UXL Encyclopedia of World Biography, (2003)

Al Hirschfeld

"I try to capture the character of the play or the individual, rather than making a caricature for caricature's sake," artist Al Hirschfeld (1903–2003) was quoted as saying in USA Today. Perhaps that was the secret of the man widely regarded as the greatest caricature artist of modern times.

Most caricatures poke fun at their subjects, exaggerating their physical features for comic effect. Hirschfeld's drawings of stage actors and other entertainers, by contrast, often seemed to find the essence of a performer's creativity. Over a 75-year association with the Al Hirschfeld New York Times, Hirschfeld drew performers ranging from dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson in the 1920s to hit television comedian Jerry Seinfeld. His style never became old-fashioned, and for decades his caricatures seemed like permanent fixtures of the Times arts pages.

Young Artist

Albert Hirschfeld grew up in St. Louis, Missouri in a house without electricity, gas, or running water. His father was a third-generation German-American, and his mother was born in Ukraine. Hirschfeld took to drawing from the start, telling Time 's Andrea Sachs that "I don't remember doing anything else. I can't do anything else." His parents moved to New York after a teacher told them there was nothing more he could learn in St. Louis. But they maintained their simple lifestyle, moving into a farmhouse near what was then the rural northern end of Manhattan Island.

Hirschfeld took art classes at the Vocational School for Boys during the day, continuing his training in the evening at the influential Art Students' League. He focused on painting and sculpture, and from the start he apparently showed the ability to work quickly and come up with convincing images: at the age of 18, he was hired as art director at Selznick Studios across the river from New York City in Fort Lee, New Jersey. He worked there with future movie-industry giant David O. Selznick, creating the publicity post for the silent film classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. After the studio hit hard times, however, Hirschfeld suffered financially and resolved to work for himself from then on.

In 1924, Hirschfeld joined a large migration of young American artists and went to Paris. Lacking the kind of financial cushion many of his friends enjoyed, Hirschfeld supported himself as a tap dancer. Still primarily a painter, he flirted with modern styles. Back in New York in 1926, however, he attended a play with agent Dick Maney. During the performance, he doodled a sketch of French actor Sacha Guitry. The agent, impressed, asked Hirschfeld for a fresh copy and sent it to several New York newspapers. The following Sunday morning, Hirschfeld awoke to find his drawing on the front page of the New York Herald Tribune 's theater section. He traveled to the Soviet Union as a theater correspondent for that paper in 1927.

Career with the New York Times

Assignments began to flow in from other papers, including the Times, where Hirschfeld was forced to drop his work off at the front desk for nearly two years—the doorman would not admit him to the rather stuffy newspaper's august halls. But editors began to notice his work, and finally they made it known that they wanted to have his work appear in the Times exclusively. "Just cross my palm with silver and I'm your fella," Hirschfeld answered (as he recounted to Neil A. Grauer of American Heritage). Thus began one of history's most durable freelance associations; Hirschfeld's drawings would appear in the newspaper for the next three-quarters of a century, but he did not sign his first contract until 1990.

Hirschfeld still had not settled definitively upon the style that made him famous; he did satirical political drawings for several leftist-oriented magazines, creating a cartoon showing the emerging German dictator Adolf Hitler in front of a chorus line of goose-stepping female dancers. His real artistic breakthrough came in 1931 when he traveled to the island of Bali, in what is now Indonesia, at the suggestion of his friend, the Mexican-born Vanity Fair illustrator Miguel Covarrubias. "The sun bleaches out color, leaving shadow and black and white, leaving these wonderful walking lines and great hieroglyphics," Hirschfeld was quoted as saying in the Washington Post. Asian artists, such as Japan's Hiroshige and Utamaro, influenced Hirschfeld's work.

After absorbing these experiences, Hirschfeld developed the ability to convey a performer's personality in a few deft strokes. Working in darkened theaters, he would make rudimentary sketches and verbal notes of his of ideas, such as the word "Brillo" to describe his image of a subject's hair. Asked one time whether he did more complex drawings when he had extra time, he answered (as quoted on the alhirschfeld.com website), "No, when I'm rushed I do a complicated drawing. When I have the time I do a simple one." Critic Tom Rubin, quoted in England's Independent newspaper, wrote of "the Rorschach-like experience of discovering, say, that Carol Channing's nose and mouth can be perfectly represented by an umlaut hovering over a parking-meter dial."