kartooner

Al Hirschfield is one of my favorite car­i­ca­ture artists. His work has appeared in sev­eral hun­dred pub­li­ca­tions and hangs on walls across the Globe. In fact, his style inspired the ‘Rhap­sody in Blue’ sequence in Fan­ta­sia 2000.

bq. “Al Hirschfeld is a child prodigy who grew old but never up. His view of the world around him, par­tic­u­larly the Amer­i­can the­ater, is as fresh and unique and joy­ous as ever. He was born in 1903 and the twen­ti­eth cen­tury was full of oppor­tu­ni­ties for an ambi­tious young man. As a teenager, he lived in New York City and stud­ied art. After an early but short career with Samuel Gold­wyn Stu­dios (where he got his first art assign­ments doing ads) he moved over to Selznick Pic­tures and by 1921, at the ripe old age of 17, he was their art direc­tor. A short stint run­ning his own art stu­dio ended up badly when Selznick went bank­rupt. A job with Warner Broth­ers allowed Hirschfeld to pay off his employ­ees and, as a reward, his uncle bought him a ticket to Paris and gave him $500.“

http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/hirschfe.htm