Rea Irvin
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Rea Irvin (August 26, 1881 – May 28, 1972) was an American graphic artist. Although never formally credited as such, he served
de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...
as the first art editor of ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
''. He created the
Eustace Tilley ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
cover portrait and the ''New Yorker''
typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are list of type ...
. 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 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 ..."Everybody Loves Rea Irvin
''PRINT Magazine''.


Early career

Born in
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
, he studied at the Mark Hopkins Art Institute for six months, started his career as an unpaid cartoonist for ''
The San Francisco Examiner The ''San Francisco Examiner'' is a newspaper distributed in and around San Francisco, California, and published since 1863. Once self-dubbed the "Monarch of the Dailies" by then-owner William Randolph Hearst, and flagship of the Hearst Corporat ...
''.Rea Irvin, Author Autograph Sample, Book List Link, Search Books Available
''TomFolio.com''.
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 may refer to: Entertainment * East Coast hip hop, a subgenre of hip hop * East Coast (ASAP Ferg song), "East Coast" (ASAP Ferg song), 2017 * East Coast (Saves the Day song), "East Coast" (Saves the Day song), 2004 * East Coast FM, a ra ...
. In the 1910s he contributed many illustrations to both '' Red Book'' magazine and its sister publication, '' Green Book''. Before
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, 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 Henry Robinson Luce (April 3, 1898 – February 28, 1967) was an American magazine magnate who founded ''Time'', ''Life'', ''Fortune'', and ''Sports Illustrated'' magazine. He has been called "the most influential private citizen in the America ...
). Irvin also contributed to ''
Cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan may refer to: Food and drink * Cosmopolitan (cocktail), also known as a "Cosmo" History * Rootless cosmopolitan, a Soviet derogatory epithet during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1949–1953 Hotels and resorts * Cosmopoli ...
'' when it was a serious literary publication. He illustrated Wallace Irwin's "Letters of a Japanese Schoolboy" in ''Life''.Stripper Irvin
''Time''.
He would later incorporate
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
ese imagery in satirical
kakemono __NOTOC__ A , more commonly referred to as a , is a Japanese hanging scroll used to display and exhibit paintings and calligraphy inscriptions and designs mounted usually with silk fabric edges on a flexible backing, so that it can be rolled fo ...
for ''The New Yorker''. He also created a series of humorous
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for ''
Murad Murad or Mourad ( ar, مراد) is an Arabic name. It is also common in Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Turkish, Persian, and Berber as a male given name or surname and is commonly used throughout the Muslim world and Middle East. Etymology It ...
'' (
turkish tobacco Turkish tobacco, or Oriental tobacco, is a highly aromatic, small-leafed variety of tobacco which is sun-cured. Turkish tobacco plants usually have a greater number and smaller size leaves. These differences can be attributed to climate, soil, cu ...
cigarettes A cigarette is a narrow cylinder containing a combustible material, typically tobacco, that is rolled into thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end, causing it to smolder; the resulting smoke is orally inhaled via the oppo ...
). He also contributed the illustrations for "Snoot If You Must," by
Lucius Beebe Lucius Morris Beebe (December 9, 1902 – February 4, 1966) was an American writer, gourmand, photographer, railroad historian, journalist, and syndicated columnist. Early life and education Beebe was born in Wakefield, Massachusetts, to a prom ...
, a noted raconteur of New York's cafe society (1943, D. Appleton-Century). He was fired from his position as art editor at ''
Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...
'' in 1924.


Career at ''The New Yorker''

However, Irvin had joined an advisory board to help launch ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' and then worked on the magazine's staff as an illustrator and art editor. When he had first taken the job, Irvin had assumed that the magazine would fold after a few issues, but his work would ultimately appear on the cover of 169 issues of ''The New Yorker'' between 1925 and 1958.Rea Irvin of The New Yorker
/ref> The magazine's first cover, of a
dandy A dandy is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisurely hobbies, pursued with the appearance of nonchalance. A dandy could be a self-made man who strove to imitate an aristocratic lifestyle desp ...
peering at a
butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The ...
through a
monocle A monocle is a type of corrective lens used to correct or enhance the visual perception 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 or wire. The other ...
, was drawn by Irvin; the dandy replaced at the last minute a drawing of theater curtains revealing the skyline of
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
. The gentleman on the original cover is referred to as "Eustace Tilley," a character created for ''The New Yorker'' by
Corey Ford Corey Ford (April 29, 1902 – July 27, 1969) was an American humorist, writer, outdoorsman, and screenwriter. He was friendly with several members of the Algonquin Round Table in New York City and occasionally lunched there. Early years Ford was ...
. Another example is the piece known as ''The Unity of the Allied Nations'', which appeared on the cover of the July 1, 1944 issue, and depicts the
national personifications A national personification is an anthropomorphic personification of a state or the people(s) it inhabits. It may appear in political cartoons and propaganda. Some early personifications in the Western world tended to be national manifestations o ...
of the
Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
(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 An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syll ...
drawn by the American etcher Allen Lewis, who had received training in
woodcut Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that ...
ting in
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, 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 Grover Thurber (December 8, 1894 – November 2, 1961) was an American cartoonist, writer, humorist, journalist and playwright. He was best known for his cartoons and short stories, published mainly in ''The New Yorker'' and collected in ...
, "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 strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...
''The Smythes''. It ran in the ''
New York Herald Tribune The ''New York Herald Tribune'' was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when Ogden Mills Reid of the ''New-York Tribune'' acquired the ''New York Herald''. It was regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and competed ...
'' during the early 1930s.


Retirement

Six years before his death, Irvin and his wife retired to a home in
Frederiksted Frederiksted is both the town and one of the two administrative districts of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. It is a grid-planned city, designed by surveyor Jens Beckfor, originally to 14x14 blocks but built 7x7 to enhance the island commerce in ...
,
Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands Saint Croix; nl, Sint-Kruis; french: link=no, Sainte-Croix; Danish and no, Sankt Croix, Taino: ''Ay Ay'' ( ) is an island in the Caribbean Sea, and a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), an unincor ...
.Rea Irvin – Biography Rea Irvin
/ref> He died of a stroke there at age 90 on May 28, 1972.


References


External links



* *
Emily Gordon, “Everybody Loves Rea Irvin,” ''Print'', August 2008.

New Yorker Store: Rea Irvin Covers



X-Rea
(column on a New Yorker-themed blog, devoted to Irvin and sightings of his signature typeface) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Irvin, Rea American cartoonists 1881 births 1972 deaths The New Yorker people The New Yorker cartoonists Artists from San Francisco San Francisco Art Institute alumni