Al Hirschfeld

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.

In 1924, he traveled to Paris and London, where he studied painting, drawing and sculpture. When he returned to the United States a friend showed one of his drawings to an editor at the New York Herald Tribune, which got him commissions for that newspaper and The New York Times.

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. His 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".

He was commissioned by CBS to illustrate a preview magazine featuring the network's new TV programming in fall 1963. One of the programs was Candid Camera, and Hirschfeld's caricature of the show's host Allen Funt outraged Funt so much he threatened to leave the network if the magazine were issued. Hirschfeld prepared a slightly different likeness, perhaps more flattering, but he and the network pointed out to Funt that the artwork prepared for newspapers and some other print media had been long in preparation and it was too late to withdraw it. Funt relented but insisted that what could be changed would have to be. Newsweek ran a squib on the controversy.