Six-panel folding exhibition announcement and catalogue published for the inaugural New York Newspaper Artists’ Exhibition held November 21–December 4, 1938 at Alma Reed’s Delphic Studios, with an introductory statement, brief artist biographies, and a numbered checklist of 70 works. 5.5” x 8” folded; 16.5 x 8” open. An uncommon document of the effort to reposition newspaper illustration, caricature, and cartooning as autonomous artistic practice, bringing together C. D. Batchelor—winner of the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning—Al Hirschfeld, Abe Birnbaum, William Auerbach-Levy, Alex Gard, Don Freeman, Rafael Palacios, Coulton Waugh, and others. Particularly notable for recording Hirschfeld and Birnbaum at formative moments in their careers and for its association with Delphic Studios, the progressive New York gallery best known for Alma Reed’s early promotion of José Clemente Orozco and Mexican modernism. Printed in brown on warm ochre stock, the restrained typographic design alternates display lettering with densely set biographies and checklist entries, retaining something of the newspaper column while adapting it to an intimate folding form. No other copy located in commerce, and apparently unrecorded in OCLC—an exceptionally scarce primary document of New York newspaper culture, American illustration, and the exhibition history of Delphic Studios. Light bumping and rubbing to extremities, with one minor closed tear to seam.
Six-panel folding exhibition announcement and catalogue published for the inaugural New York Newspaper Artists’ Exhibition held November 21–December 4, 1938 at Alma Reed’s Delphic Studios, with an introductory statement, brief artist biographies, and a numbered checklist of 70 works. 5.5” x 8” folded; 16.5 x 8” open. An uncommon document of the effort to reposition newspaper illustration, caricature, and cartooning as autonomous artistic practice, bringing together C. D. Batchelor—winner of the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning—Al Hirschfeld, Abe Birnbaum, William Auerbach-Levy, Alex Gard, Don Freeman, Rafael Palacios, Coulton Waugh, and others. Particularly notable for recording Hirschfeld and Birnbaum at formative moments in their careers and for its association with Delphic Studios, the progressive New York gallery best known for Alma Reed’s early promotion of José Clemente Orozco and Mexican modernism. Printed in brown on warm ochre stock, the restrained typographic design alternates display lettering with densely set biographies and checklist entries, retaining something of the newspaper column while adapting it to an intimate folding form. No other copy located in commerce, and apparently unrecorded in OCLC—an exceptionally scarce primary document of New York newspaper culture, American illustration, and the exhibition history of Delphic Studios. Light bumping and rubbing to extremities, with one minor closed tear to seam.
