John Held, Jr. and the Jazz Age - Newsview - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), August, 2002

If ever an artist's work defined a particular era, it was that of Roaring Twenties illustrator John Held, Jr., whose creations set the standard for--and gently ribbed--a generation. More than any other artist of his time, Held expressed in his pictures the bold spirit of the Jazz Age. It was a time of bustling commerce, booming enterprises, and engaging recreation. Society's elite were dining at Sardi's in New York; the adventurous were doing the Charleston and the shimmy in dance marathons; and the flapper was in full vogue, out and about in pursuit of a good time. Chronicling it all for magazine readers coast-to-coast was Held.

His highly stylized illustrations are the centerpiece of "John Held, Jr. and the Jazz Age," an exhibition that follows Held's career through the heyday of his successes as a leading illustrator for the most-popular magazines of the times. While his drawings were published in such publications as Life and Judge, it was his work for the fledgling magazine The New Yorker that established Held in the eyes of the nation. His depictions of Betty Coed, the prototypical "flapper" (along with her gentleman friend, Joe College), became the quintessential definition of the decade's "flaming youth."

Readers of Harper's Bazaar, Redbook, and Vanity Fair would be hard-pressed to avoid Held's ubiquitous depictions of the Jazz Age's high-living college crowd. The characters' contemporaries got a real kick out of Held's creations, and parents of the younger generation turned to these illustrations for a clearer understanding of their children.

Some of Held's earliest pictures depicted dancers in the spotlight, a notable precursor to the flapper images that would immortalize his art. Once the Depression brought an end to more-lucrative assignments, Held turned from pen-and-ink and watercolors to sculpture and wrought iron in order to reenergize his then-flagging career. Held is also known for his quirky takes on cartography. His parodies of maps, which frequently appeared in such publications as The New Yorker, were full of pithy commentaries and extraneous details and were completely out of scale. While his proficiencies spanned all mediums, Held's special talent was his knowing brand of humor, which so significantly charmed his audiences.

"John Held, Jr. and the Jazz Age" is on view at the Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Mass., through Sept. 8.