George Price (New Yorker cartoonist)
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George Price (9 June 1901 – 12 January 1995) was an American cartoonist best known for the gag cartoons he contributed to The New Yorker for about six decades.[1][2] His spare, mechanical-looking line and his gallery of gaunt, eccentric characters made his work among the most recognisable in the magazine, and at his death he was its oldest regular contributor.[3][4]
Early life and career
The New Yorker
Sources differ on when Price's first work appeared in The New Yorker: Britannica gives 1926, the cartoon historian Michael Maslin gives 1929, and other accounts give 1932.[1][2][3] His last appeared in 1991.[2][5] According to Maslin he published 1,279 pieces in the magazine, including one cover (25 December 1965), which made him one of the few cartoonists to pass 1,000 published contributions.[5][6] R. C. Harvey described him as the last survivor of the magazine's pacesetting cartoonists of the late 1920s and early 1930s.[4]
Price relied on gag writers, among them Richard McCallister, for many of his ideas,[2] but the gags were tailored to his own style.[4] Former New Yorker cartoon editor Lee Lorenz ranked him among the magazine's great stylists, alongside Peter Arno, Helen Hokinson, James Thurber and William Steig.[2]
Style
Britannica credits Price with helping to modernise magazine humour through drawings with short, often single-line captions, in which his characters react logically to absurd situations; one early success was a series about a man suspended in mid-air.[1] Commentators have described his drawing as "mechanical" and "diagrammatic",[2] like a cartoon schematic, built from "split lines" made by going over his pen strokes again and again.[5] In a 1975 interview Price remarked that all cartoonists are, in a way, actors.[7] Harvey praised the combination of fluidity and precision in his line and his intense attention to detail.[4]
Other work
Price also drew for Collier's and The Saturday Evening Post.[1][3] Alongside his magazine work he continued to produce advertising art, including campaigns for Peterman Ant Killer (1946), Scotch Tape (1947), American Express (1954), Durkee's (1955 and 1957) and Del Monte (1969).[5] The Brandywine Museum of Art holds his original ink-and-watercolour drawing As Long as You're Grant, Get Me a 7-Up (1963).[3]
Books
Death
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 "George Price", Encyclopædia Britannica.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 Michael Maslin, "George Price: 'The Chuckling Champion Of The Washed-Out Man'", Ink Spill, 18 March 2025.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 "As Long as You're Grant, Get Me a 7-Up", Brandywine Museum of Art (object record and artist biography).
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 R. C. Harvey, "A Love Letter to George Price", Harv's Hindsights.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Michael Maslin, "Advertising Work by New Yorker Cartoonists, Pt. 32: George Price", Ink Spill, 7 March 2018.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Michael Maslin, "A Shout-Out to George Price", Ink Spill, 1 December 2014.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Michael Maslin, "All Cartoonists Are Actors", Ink Spill.