Al Hirschfeld, Master Caricaturist
Try to draw a squiggled pen line, make a smooth swoop or two with the ink brush, and add a pair of smiling eyes. It sounds easy, but for most of us the picture would look more like something from a crayon in a five-year-old's fist. With the hand of a masterful artist, Al Hirschfeld took his black pen and created joyful caricature magic.
Al Hirschfeld was born on June 21, 1903 in St. Louis, Missouri. He was one of three sons of Rebecca and Isaac Hirschfeld. *(1) Art so encompassed his life that by age 12, his grade school teacher said there was nothing more they could teach him. The family moved to New York City, where Hirschfeld continued his studies and joined the Art Students League. His first working assignments came at age 17, creating ads for the Samuel Goldwyn Studios. A short time later, he was the art director for Selznick Pictures - he was also still a teenager. Hirschfeld made a stab at running his own studio without success, but work with Warner Brothers gave him the finances he needed to pay his former staff. *(2)
Trips to Europe and Bali inspired the young artist. Hirschfeld told an interviewer that the people resembled "walking line drawings," due to the intense sun that bleached out all colour. Though interested in many forms of art, he was fascinated with line drawing and developed it into his signature style.
The New York Herald Tribune was the first to publish the deceptively effortless caricatures, beginning with a sketch on December 26, 1926 of Sacha Guitry, a French actor in his first American stage performance. The picture was published on the front page and earned him more assignments. Within two years, the New York Times became one of five newspapers to publish Hirschfeld's work. It was the start of a lifelong freelance relationship for Hirschfeld with the New York Times, one that would last an amazing 75 years.
While watching performances in Broadway theatres, Al Hirschfeld drew spare lines and made notes n the pages of a small notebook. (He was known to doodle expertly in the dark, in his pocket, too.) Back at his studio, he transformed the sketches into breath-taking caricatures of famous actors. His perfected style used the least number of lines to gain maximum effect, such as swooping lines to represent a shoulder to the wrist, with only the fingers of the opposite hand in a sea of white to signify crossed arms. His work was dramatic, an effort to capture the essence, the true character, of his subject. He used black space and texture to enhance clothing, bow ties or hair, and sharp chins, exaggerated or minimized eyes to pique interest.
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