Rea Irvin
Encyclopedia
Rea Irvin was an American
graphic artist. Although never formally credited as such, he served de facto
as the first art editor of The New Yorker
. He created the Eustace Tilley cover portrait and the New Yorker typeface
. He first drew Tilley for the cover of the magazine's first issue on February 21, 1925. Tilley appeared annually on the magazine's cover every February until 1994. As one commentator has written, "a truly modern bon vivant, Irvin (1881–1972) was also a keen appreciator of the century of his birth. His high regard for both the careful artistry of the past and the gleam of the modern metropolis shines from the very first issue of the magazine..."
. He also contributed to the San Francisco Evening Post. He also worked as an itinerant actor (for both stage and screen), newspaper illustrator, and piano player. In 1906 he moved to the East Coast
. In the 1910s he contributed many illustrations to both Red Book
magazine and its sister publication, Green Book.
Before World War I
, Irvin contributed illustrations regularly to Life
, and rose to the position of art editor. (Life the humorous weekly, and not to be confused with the more famous magazine of the same name published by Henry Luce
). Irvin also contributed to Cosmopolitan
when it was still a serious literary publication. He illustrated Wallace Irwin's
"Letters of a Japanese Schoolboy" in Life. He would later incorporate Japan
ese imagery in satirical kakemono
for The New Yorker.
He also created a series of humorous advertisements for Murad cigarettes.
He was fired from his position as art editor at Life
in 1924.
peering at a butterfly
through a monocle
, was drawn by Irvin; the dandy replaced at the last minute a drawing of theater curtains revealing the skyline of Manhattan
. The gentleman on the original cover is referred to as "Eustace Tilley," a character created for The New Yorker by Corey Ford
.
When he had taken the job at The New Yorker, Irvin had assumed that the magazine would fold after a few issues, but his work would appear on 169 covers of The New Yorker between 1925 and 1958), including, for example, the piece known as The Unity of the Allied Nations. This appeared on the cover for the July 1, 1944 issue, and depicts the national personifications of the Allies
(the American Eagle, the Chinese Dragon, the Russian Bear
and the British Lion).
Besides covers for the magazine, Irvin also drew various illustrations, department headings, caricatures, and cartoons.
The New Yorker signature display typeface, used for its nameplate and headlines and the masthead above The Talk of the Town section, is called "Irvin" or "Irvin type," after him. An alphabet
drawn by the American etcher Allen Lewis, who had received training in woodcut
ting in Paris
, was used as the typographical basis for the "Irvin type." Irvin may have spotted Lewis’ lettering, which was drawn to imitate a woodcut, in a pamphlet entitled "Journeys To Bagdad", and liked it so much that Irvin asked Lewis to create the entire alphabet. Uninterested in this project, Lewis suggested that Irvin create the alphabet himself –this became the "Irvin type."
He also added the New Yorker's squiggly column rules; these provide a delineation between the text and illustrations. He was also responsible for the vertical “cover strap” that was used for the magazine's margins.
According to James Thurber
, "the invaluable Irvin, artist, ex-actor, wit, and sophisticate about town and country, did more to develop the style and excellence of The New Yorker's drawings and covers than anyone else, and was the main and shining reason that the magazine's comic art in the first two years was far superior to its humorous prose.” Emily Gordon has written that “Irvin’s own intimacy with classic form and craft, and his genial willingness to share that expertise… allowed him to create a complete device: a design, a typeface, a style, and a mood that would be instantly recognizable, and eminently effective, almost a century later.”
The Smythes. It ran in the New York Herald Tribune
during the early 1930s.
. He died of a stroke there at age 90 on May 28, 1972.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
graphic artist. Although never formally credited as such, he served de facto
De facto
De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...
as the first art editor of The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
. He created the Eustace Tilley cover portrait and the New Yorker typeface
Typeface
In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....
. He first drew Tilley for the cover of the magazine's first issue on February 21, 1925. Tilley appeared annually on the magazine's cover every February until 1994. As one commentator has written, "a truly modern bon vivant, Irvin (1881–1972) was also a keen appreciator of the century of his birth. His high regard for both the careful artistry of the past and the gleam of the modern metropolis shines from the very first issue of the magazine..."
Early career
Born in San Francisco, he studied at the Mark Hopkins Art Institute for six months, started his career as an unpaid cartoonist for The San Francisco ExaminerThe San Francisco Examiner
The San Francisco Examiner is a U.S. daily newspaper. It has been published continuously in San Francisco, California, since the late 19th century.-19th century:...
. He also contributed to the San Francisco Evening Post. He also worked as an itinerant actor (for both stage and screen), newspaper illustrator, and piano player. In 1906 he moved to the East Coast
East Coast of the United States
The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, refers to the easternmost coastal states in the United States, which touch the Atlantic Ocean and stretch up to Canada. The term includes the U.S...
. In the 1910s he contributed many illustrations to both Red Book
Redbook
Redbook is an American women's magazine published by the Hearst Corporation. It is one of the "Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines.-History:...
magazine and its sister publication, Green Book.
Before World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Irvin contributed illustrations regularly to Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
, and rose to the position of art editor. (Life the humorous weekly, and not to be confused with the more famous magazine of the same name published by Henry Luce
Henry Luce
Henry Robinson Luce was an influential American publisher. He launched and closely supervised a stable of magazines that transformed journalism and the reading habits of upscale Americans...
). Irvin also contributed to Cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan (magazine)
Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s...
when it was still a serious literary publication. He illustrated Wallace Irwin's
Wallace Irwin
Wallace Irwin was an American writer. Over the course of his long career, Irwin wrote humorous sketches, light verse, screenplays, short stories, novels, nautical lays, aphorisms, journalism, political satire, lyrics for Broadway musicals, and the libretto for an opera...
"Letters of a Japanese Schoolboy" in Life. He would later incorporate Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese imagery in satirical kakemono
Kakemono
A , more commonly referred to as a , is a Japanese scroll painting or calligraphy mounted usually with silk fabric edges on a flexible backing, so that it can be rolled for storage....
for The New Yorker.
He also created a series of humorous advertisements for Murad cigarettes.
He was fired from his position as art editor at Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
in 1924.
Career at The New Yorker
However, Irvin had joined an advisory board to help launch The New Yorker and then worked on the staff of The New Yorker as an illustrator and art editor. The magazine's first cover, of a dandyDandy
A dandy is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisurely hobbies, pursued with the appearance of nonchalance in a cult of Self...
peering at a butterfly
Butterfly
A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured...
through a monocle
Monocle
A monocle is a type of corrective lens used to correct or enhance the vision in only one eye. It consists of a circular lens, generally with a wire ring around the circumference that can be attached to a string. The other end of the string is then connected to the wearer's clothing to avoid losing...
, was drawn by Irvin; the dandy replaced at the last minute a drawing of theater curtains revealing the skyline of Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
. The gentleman on the original cover is referred to as "Eustace Tilley," a character created for The New Yorker by Corey Ford
Corey Ford
Corey Ford was an American humorist, author, outdoorsman, and screenwriter. He was also friendly with several members of the Algonquin Round Table and occasionally ate lunch there....
.
When he had taken the job at The New Yorker, Irvin had assumed that the magazine would fold after a few issues, but his work would appear on 169 covers of The New Yorker between 1925 and 1958), including, for example, the piece known as The Unity of the Allied Nations. This appeared on the cover for the July 1, 1944 issue, and depicts the national personifications of the Allies
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
(the American Eagle, the Chinese Dragon, the Russian Bear
Russian Bear
The Russian Bear is a national personification for Russia, used in cartoons, articles and dramatic plays at least since the 17th century, and relating alike to Tsarist Russia, the Soviet Union and the present-day Russian Federation....
and the British Lion).
Besides covers for the magazine, Irvin also drew various illustrations, department headings, caricatures, and cartoons.
The New Yorker signature display typeface, used for its nameplate and headlines and the masthead above The Talk of the Town section, is called "Irvin" or "Irvin type," after him. An alphabet
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...
drawn by the American etcher Allen Lewis, who had received training in woodcut
Woodcut
Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...
ting in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, was used as the typographical basis for the "Irvin type." Irvin may have spotted Lewis’ lettering, which was drawn to imitate a woodcut, in a pamphlet entitled "Journeys To Bagdad", and liked it so much that Irvin asked Lewis to create the entire alphabet. Uninterested in this project, Lewis suggested that Irvin create the alphabet himself –this became the "Irvin type."
He also added the New Yorker's squiggly column rules; these provide a delineation between the text and illustrations. He was also responsible for the vertical “cover strap” that was used for the magazine's margins.
According to James Thurber
James Thurber
James Grover Thurber was an American author, cartoonist and celebrated wit. Thurber was best known for his cartoons and short stories published in The New Yorker magazine.-Life:...
, "the invaluable Irvin, artist, ex-actor, wit, and sophisticate about town and country, did more to develop the style and excellence of The New Yorker's drawings and covers than anyone else, and was the main and shining reason that the magazine's comic art in the first two years was far superior to its humorous prose.” Emily Gordon has written that “Irvin’s own intimacy with classic form and craft, and his genial willingness to share that expertise… allowed him to create a complete device: a design, a typeface, a style, and a mood that would be instantly recognizable, and eminently effective, almost a century later.”
The Smythes
Irvin also created the comic stripComic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
The Smythes. It ran in the New York Herald Tribune
New York Herald Tribune
The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...
during the early 1930s.
Retirement
Six years before his death, Irvin and his wife retired to a home in Frederiksted, Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin IslandsSaint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
Saint Croix is an island in the Caribbean Sea, and a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands , an unincorporated territory of the United States. Formerly the Danish West Indies, they were sold to the United States by Denmark in the Treaty of the Danish West Indies of...
. He died of a stroke there at age 90 on May 28, 1972.
External links
- The Talk of the Town; Rea Irvin of The New Yorker
- Emily Gordon, “Everybody Loves Rea Irvin,” Print, August 2008.
- New Yorker Store: Rea Irvin Covers
- "Stripper Irvin," Time, Monday, Jun. 23, 1930
- X-Rea (column on a New Yorker-themed blog, devoted to Irvin and sightings of his signature typeface)