Al Hirschfeld..almost all about a figure of New York'art scene

Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center Receives Al Hirschfeld 'Barber Chair'

NEW YORK, NY - Show-biz caricaturist Al Hirschfeld immortalized the world of theater with his fluid ink-and-pen portraits while seated in a barbershop chair behind a worn century-old drafting desk in the fourth-floor studio of his Manhattan town house. Now, eight years after the celebrated artist's death, his widow is donating the sturdy tools of his trade to the Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. Hirschfeld, who captured the appearance and personality of theater people for more than half a century with a distinct linear calligraphic style, died in 2003 at the age of 99.

"It took eight men to get the chair down" the four flights of stairs, Louise Hirschfeld Cullman, a theater historian who married Hirschfeld in 1996, said in an interview Tuesday.

"I thought this library was the right place for his work," she said. "He lived most of his life in New York. His main focus was New York City and the theater. ... his personal vision and style was something I felt belonged in New York."

The artifacts were scheduled to be unveiled at a reception at the library. The two artifacts will be displayed in the lobby of the performing arts library.

Hirschfeld made virtually all of his drawings while he was ensconced in his chair at the old desk with his subjects seated on a sofa across from him.

His widow, who has remarried, recalled how Wynton Marsalis arrived at the house to have his portrait drawn, "blowing his trumpet all the way upstairs." Another time, Michael Tilson Thomas, walking past the grand piano for his sitting, stopped to tickle the ivories with George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue."

Among the last notable figures to pose for his portrait in the studio was Nicolas Cage, she said.

Its executive director, Jacqueline Davis, said 2,200 to 2,500 people a month walk through the door where they will "immediately be hit by this desk and chair ... and discover Al Hirschfeld and his creativity."





"It stretches the imagination how he worked, both by the work he did and the setting in which he worked," Davis added.

"The chair was like his throne," it's height allowing him to "look down at his studio," Hirschfeld Cullman said. It came from a barbershop in the Chrysler Building in 1993, replacing another barber chair that had fallen apart from wear.

The drafting table is from the early 1900s and "had many little drawers for his pen stubs and pencils, and a variety of beautiful brushes which he never used, but they were so theatrical looking," his widow said. Hirschfeld took his daily afternoon tea at the desk and chair, napped in it, read in it and did his finances in it, she said.

The Al Hirschfeld Foundation also will be donating a variety of Hirschfeld letters, photographs, memorabilia and other items of interest to the library over the next few months, said Hirschfeld Cullman, who is the foundation's president. Among the letters will be ones from his daughter, Nina, whose name he imbedded in the lines of all his drawings.

Albert "Al" Hirschfeld (June 21, 1903 – January 20, 2003) was an American caricaturist best known for his simple black and white portraits of celebrities and Broadway stars. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, he moved with his family to New York City where he received his art training at the Art Students League of New York. Hirschfeld's art style is unique, and he is considered to be one of the most important figures in contemporary caricature, having influenced countless cartoonists. Hirschfeld's caricatures are almost always drawings of pure line with simple black ink on white paper with little to no shading or crosshatching. His drawings always manage to capture a likeness using the minimum number of lines.

Though his caricatures often exaggerate and distort the faces of his subjects, he is often described as being a fundamentally "nicer" caricaturist than many of his contemporaries, and being drawn by Hirschfeld was considered an honor more than an insult. Nonetheless he did face some complaints from his editors over the years; in a late-1990s interview with The Comics Journal Hirschfeld recounted how one editor told him his drawings of Broadway's "beautiful people" looked like "a bunch of animals".

During Hirschfeld's nearly eight-decade career, he gained fame by illustrating the entire casts of various Broadway plays, which would appear to accompany reviews in The New York Times. Though this was Hirschfeld's best known field of interest he also would draw politicians, TV stars, and celebrities of all stripes from Cole Porter, the Nordstrom Sisters to the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation; Hirschfeld also caricatured hard rockers Aerosmith for the cover of their 1977 album Draw the Line.





He expanded his audience by contributing to Patrick F. McManus' humor column in Outdoor Life magazine for a number of years. Hirschfeld started young and continued drawing to the end of his life, thus chronicling nearly all the major entertainment figures of the 20th Century. Hirschfeld drew some of the original movie posters for Charlie Chaplin's films, as well as The Wizard of Oz.

The Rhapsody in Blue segment in the Disney film Fantasia 2000 was inspired by his designs and Hirschfeld became an artistic consultant for the segment, while the segment's director, Eric Goldberg, is a long time fan of his work. Further evidence of Goldberg's admiration for Hirschfeld can be found in Goldberg's character design and animation of the Genie in Aladdin. He was the subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary film, The Line King: The Al Hirschfeld Story (1996).

Compilation of Hirschfeld's work, showing caricatures of Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott, Franklin Pierce Adams and other members of the Algonquin Round Table. Permanent collections of Hirschfeld's work appear at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The Martin Beck Theatre, which opened November 11, 1924 at 302 West 45th Street, was renamed to become the Al Hirschfeld Theatre on June 21, 2003. In 2002, Al Hirschfeld was awarded the National Medal of Arts.

Hirschfeld resided at 122 East 95th Street, in Manhattan. He died, aged 99, of natural causes at his home on January 20, 2003; just five months before his 100th birthday
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