Boris
Youjanin, Director of
"The Blue Blouse," 1928
Ink and watercolor on paper
Caroline and Erwin Swann
Memorial Fund Purchase
Prints
and Photographs Division (17)
LC-USZ62-127550
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About Al Hirschfeld - Credits
Al Hirschfeld and Broadway have been
inseparable for seventy-five years, since he published his first
theatrical caricature in 1926. Yet for Hirschfeld there has always
been a world beyond Broadway exciting his passions and focusing
his vision. His intellectual horizons have embraced a wide variety
of influences. He studied art in New York and Paris, traveled extensively
in Europe and Asia, and began his professional career at the precocious
age of eighteen in the budding movie industry. He took art classes
at night, studied the art of the great European illustrators, and
learned from such celebrated American masters as Charles Dana Gibson
and John Held, Jr. During the 1920s he found inspiration in his
friendship with Mexican caricaturist Miguel Covarrubias; they shared
a studio, a love of graphic line, and a profound interest in the
Harlem Renaissance. In 1928, Hirschfeld traveled to Russia to review
the impact of the Revolution on the performing arts. In 1932, he
followed Covarrubias to Bali, where the contrast of dark shadows
and bright sunlight transformed his art. During the early years
of the Depression he empathized with the aims of Works Progress
Administration (WPA) artists, producing witty, stylized cartoons
and powerful political prints supporting social reform. Soon, however,
motivated more by art than politics, he eliminated social content
from his work entirely, pursuing instead with single-minded devotion
the spirited, irrepressible linear style for which he has become
internationally renowned.
Al Hirschfeld, Beyond Broadway
celebrates a "Gift to the Nation" of original drawings given by
the artist in honor of the Library's Bicentennial. The exhibition
features twenty-five works drawn from the gift, and from the Library's
established collections, spanning Hirschfeld's miraculous career
and offering an intimate look back at the origins of his wondrous,
"unaccountable" line. Too often we take that legendary line for
granted, looking for "Nina" while overlooking Hirschfeld's brilliant
artistry. Beyond Broadway reemphasizes his professional
roots and personal interests, putting his genius into context. These
works for the most part bring us outside the familiar in Hirschfeld's
graphic repertoire, suggesting that his magical mastery of line
evolved in locales beyond the Great White Way--in the markets of
Morocco, the studios of Paris, the jazz bars of Manhattan, and the
villages of Bali. In them we catch more than a glimmer of the fierce
determination and immense creativity required to bring forth from
such a complexity one elegant line so unique and expressive it has
come to define an artist, an age, and an art form.
Harry Katz
Curator, Prints & Photographs Division
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