Available for the first time to The New Yorkerrsquo;s one million-plus readers: a volume dedicated to the individual careers of the magazinersquo;s cartoon superstars.Widely considered to be the pantheon of single-panel cartooning; The New Yorker cartoonistsrsquo; styles are richly varied; and their personal stories are surprising. For example; did you know that Arnie Levin is a seventy-three-year-old former Beatnik painter with a handlebar mustache and a back decorated by Japanrsquo;s foremost tattoo artists?Gehrrsquo;s book features fascinating biographical profiles of such artists as Gahan Wilson; Sam Gross; Roz Chast; Lee Lorenz; and Edward Koren. Along with a dozen such profiles; Gehr provides a brief history of The New Yorker cartoon itself; touching on the lives and work of earlier illustrating wits; including Charles Addams; James Thurber; and William Steig.
2014-10-07 2014-10-07File Name: B00M0ET9RY
Review
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful. Calasso is profound and entertainingBy lauriecacaoRoberto Calasso is not light reading; but he does have a consistent dry wit and does not pull punches in social critique.Ive read several of his books in English and always feel like Hermes is guiding me on obscure and mystical journeys; showing all sorts of undreamed-of wonders which I totally apprehend while in his company but which afterward often feel as though they are a fleeting dream. This isnt meant in any sort of derogatory way. I love those journeys; but any attempt on my part to analyze or literally describe would be a gross injustice. I just save his books; among the few; for rereading more than once.Hope that gives someone a sense of his writing. He is focused on the deep and unnameable behind the visible; yet I sense he is well-grounded. Tiepolo Pink is overtly more focused or specific than Ka; Cadmus Harmony; Literature; but somehow only in a holographic sense. Enough inarticulation. . .1 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Wild but wonderful.By Richard J .CollinsTiepolo Pink??? I never even noticed it before. This book is an eye opener. I have dealt in paintings for the past 40 years and thought I was observant and astute. Calasso takes the reader for a trip through the mind of Tiepolo like you cant even imagine.A wonderful book. I plan on reading it again.3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. A work of affection; insight and a marvelous congruence of temperBy Glenn J. SheaI love Tiepolo. To some of my art-fancying friends; as well as to many a critic of painting; this is a sign of frivolity; if not moral degeneration; but to others; just the mention of Tiepolos name provokes a smile; even a grin; of shared delight. Whose colors are like Tiepolos; with their cool; almost pastel surfaces; their outreacute; tonal combinations; the sudden intrusions of dark and of bursting light? Above all; whose compositions are like his; with cherubs flying and falling; as if gravity had snapped to after a moment of inattention? The kind of painter Tiepolo is means that an arid; academic or tedious book about him would be a special offense; in TIEPOLO PINK (Knopf; 2009) the Italian writer Roberto Calasso approaches the eighteenth-century Venetian painter as the final European master of sprezzatura--he calls him "the last breath of happiness in Europe"--and explores his work with affection; insight and a marvelous congruence of temper. Sprezzatura Castiglione characterizes as "a certain nonchalance that may conceal art and demonstrate that what ones does and says one does without effort and almost without thought." For him it was the "complete contrast" to affectation; Ive seen it translated as "effortless mastery". In Tiepolos exuberant and airborne scenes there is often a drama afoot just a bit beyond easy explanation; and Calasso approaches this mystery--Tiepolos "particular way of meeting the challenge of form"--not just via the ceilings and canvases but by the lesser known etchings; the Capricci and Scherzi. Throughout he defends Tiepolo against the dispraises of Longhi and other critics with just the right gravity of manner--the courtesy of erudition and the joy of complete involvement. TIEPOLO PINK is a handsome book; a grave delight; and no poor example of sprezzatura itself. Castigliones last word on the topic: "From this; I believe; does much grace arrive." Brava.Glenn Shea; from Glenns Book Notes at www.bookbarnniantic.com
