Of Art Young and young art
A drawing of Art Young by my friend Walt
Partymiller, cartoonist for one of the few Socialist newspapers of his day,
the York (PA) Times. Walt late in life married Nellie Anna Opper,
granddaughter of Frederick Burr Opper.
By Rick Marschall.
A crowded life achieves that status by many means. As
Solomon said, recorded in the Book of Ecclesiastes, “Time and chance happeneth
to all.” Some knowledge, and treasures, and memories, come out of the blue,
like last week’s Christmas card from Hergé and his wife Fanny; or through
friends; or coincidental friends-of-friends… Being in the right place at the
right time. Plausible events and match-ups occur more frequently as you plant
seeds.
And some things happen unpredicted, unexpected, and almost
unbelievable.
In the 1970s and early ‘80s I lived in Fairfield County,
Connecticut. First in Bethel; later in Westport and Weston. The place in Weston
was three acres in the woods, two ponds and a stream running through our
paisley shawl, deer in the front yard every morning; but only an hour’s drive
from Times Square. That was when I wrote Disney stories for Gutenberghus, the
Danish licensee.
Caricature in clay of Art
Young, by Jack Sears
My first sojourn was when I drew political cartoons for
the Connecticut Herald, and my place in Bethel was rented from my college
mentor Dr Albro Martin of American University. I told him I secured a newspaper
job in Fairfield County. He was still in Washington DC, or maybe then at his
next school, Bradley University, in Illinois. The strange thing I think I never
knew was why he had a house in Bethel CT… and why his mother, an elderly
Arkansas backwoodswoman, lived there. Alone, much less.
Dr Martin asked if I would consider being a tenant and
collaterally look after his mother. A nice house in a charming New England
town, a lot of wooded land, a swimming pool, and an easy decision.
“The woods were full of
cartoonists.” Literally. New Yorker cartoonists Joe Farris and David Pascal had
homes on Bethel Road Extension, just opposite. New Yorker cartoonists Bob Kraus
and William Steig lived in Ridgefield, and so did Maurice Sendak. Recently
Cullen Murphy wrote a book, Cartoon County, about growing up as the son
of the Big Ben Bolt and Prince Valiant cartoonist, and the folks
who gathered weekly, or more often, for lunches, dinners, parties, golf
outings, and cruises.
I was blessed to be working and living – and partying –
among so many people who were my idols a few years earlier. And still were. I was
accepted in the genial circles, and have shared memories here, and will in the
future. Dik Browne, Dick Hodgins, Jack Tippit, Lenny Starr, Stan Drake, Jack
Murphy, Jerry Dumas, Bob Gustafson, Mort Walker, Chuck Saxon, Dick Cavalli,
Frank Johnson, Curt Swan, John Prentice, Hardie Gramatky, Eric Gurney, Mel
Casson, Bill Brown, so many more. So many lunches.
One regular lunch group of mine was centered up around
Bethel and Ridgefield. One of two days a week, a group roughly comprising Ron
Goulart, Orlando Busino, Jerry Marcus, Gill Fox, Jack Berrill, and Bob Weber
would meet at one of several restaurants until Jerry found something to
complain about, and then we would re-gather at another restaurant.
Two drawings by Art Young
of the backyard cabin in Bethel – the studio
as it looked, and as he hoped to upgrade it as a small art gallery.
One week, I mentioned that the property where I had lived
in Bethel, ‘way back in the woods, abutted the property of the house where the
legendary cartoonist Art Young lived. I knew because he wrote about it, and
sketched parts of the property and studio in his two autobiographies. Art Young
was a powerful cartoonist. As a radical he drew for The Masses and other
Socialist and anarchist journals, and had been indicted during World War I for
“obstructing the war effort.” He dozed off during his trial.
As a “straight” cartoonist, he drew some of the first
color cartoons in newspapers (Chicago Inter-Ocean, 1892), and for Puck,
Judge, Life, The Saturday Evening Post, even The
New Yorker and the New York American, friendly with all.
Bob Weber asked if I had ever visited that house, or
knocked on the door. “No, Art Young died in 1944,” I attempted to wisecrack.
Bob suggested we go and visit the occupants – maybe they knew Young; or maybe
he left material behind. Bob, who draws Moose and Mollie, is one of the
great guys in the business, and shy about nothing except deadlines, insisted we
try. Since I was driving him that day, it seemed natural. I never had thought
of doing such a thing!
We drove, knocked, and were met by Clay Fairborn and his
wife. Indeed, they had bought the house from Young’s children in 1944. We chatted
about all they knew about Young – which was not much, never having met him –
but were very grateful to learn all we could share about the famous radical and
humor cartoonist. A charming couple of hours.
Bob finally asked if anything of Young’s had been left
behind. Clay said, “I was just about to tell you that things were in the attic,
and still are. I was going to ask you fellers if you would like them. You know
more about Mr Young than we ever did. Seems right.”
“Holy Trinity” –
reportedly Art Young’s favorite of his own cartoons. About the Episcopal Church
as a New York slumlord. I own the original, previously acquired to the
afternoon at his old homestead in Bethel.
Yes. It sort of felt right to accept his offer. Clay
brought down a small trove of books, artwork, and even Art Young’s student
notebooks from Chicago, enormous sheets of sketches and studies bound in an
elaborate leather book befitting the ambitions of am aspiring artist.
We thanked the Fairborns, then and afterward, and Bob and
I were able to divide the artifacts, as I already had some of Art Young’s books
and magazines, inscribed, and he cared less about the original art.
From a casual conversation over lunch to a random house
call to driving home with precious cartoon artifacts – begun and finished in
three hours or so – are threads in the weave of a Crowded Life in cartoons.
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