Small Circles: On Drawing Numismatists and Finding Your Own Kind

An eventful night racing between the New Yorker Cartoonist Show at The Society Of Illustrators & the New York International Numismatic Convention Gala at the Century Association...

January 16th, 2024
Upper East Side, NY

4:49pm

The F train at rush hour is its own special circle of hell.

A man in a puffer jacket the size of a studio apartment was mouthing the words to 'The Power of Now' on the F train, his lips forming each syllable with the determination of someone trying to summon Dante himself. Fitting, given that the 42nd Street Times Square station at rush hour is essentially the tenth circle of hell - the one reserved for New Yorkers who thought they could make it to the Upper East Side in under an hour.

I’d sprinted in the freezing wind, coat unbuttoned and flapping like a deranged supervillain's cape, before plunging into the human soup of the subway towards 63rd and Lex. The MTA is a testament to the fact that no matter how cold it is outside, the train carriage will always be precisely the temperature of human breath. Also, smell.

The heaving sardine tin rattled toward 63rd Street as I wedged myself between Mindfulness Man and a woman whose shopping haul seemed to be breeding. She had several bags from Alo, Vuori, and Alala. (Why do all athleisure brands sound like someone trying to speak in a dentist’s chair?)

The Society of Illustrators was eerily quiet when I arrived – a stark contrast to how I'd find it later that night. "Wait in the downstairs gallery until the private tour is over upstairs," I was told, which felt a bit like being sent to the kids' table at Thanksgiving. The exhibition was opening at 5, but I needed to get in early before racing downtown to a live-drawing gig and getting back up here before closing. It was going to take precise timing of Ubers and Subways to pull this off.

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What is the Society of Illustrators, you ask?

Great question. It’s best answered in my strange, affected Australian accent while standing in an echoey hallway wearing a blazer. Strap in for me geeking out about one of my favourite places in New York City…

5:37pm

I dawdled around, pretending to look at children’s book artwork but also attempting to identify fellow New Yorker cartoonists in the gallery, also waiting to ascend. The problem with this business is you never actually know what any of your colleagues look like— we’re just a signature in the corner of our cartoons. There aren’t any MS Teams avatars under our work. The guy mouthing “The Power of Now” could have been a fellow contributor, as far as I know. (The handful of cartoonists I do recognise in New York are mostly the ones who used to go into the NYer offices each Tuesday to submit their batch in the before-times. This is no longer a thing, so we must rely on group chats and Slack channels to commiserate now.)

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The great Sofia Warren with an absolute banger of a desert island gag.

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It wasn’t long before I found Peter Kuper, the genius behind MAD Magazine's "Spy vs. Spy,"¹ doing what cartoonists do best—studying the work of others with equal parts admiration and envy. We went up to the MoCCA² Gallery on the first floor and stood together, drooling over Chuck Saxon's masterful line. "Look at this," Peter said, pointing to a high heel rendered in what appeared to be crayon. "He barely touched the paper, and yet—" He didn't need to finish the sentence. We both knew that achieving that kind of elegant simplicity is anything but simple. It takes a lot of effort to make it look effortless.

The New Yorker cartoonist portrait from decades ago— this was later recreated in the upstairs gallery with far fewer tuxedos.

We looked at several great artworks, from Arno to Barsotti, Rosen to Perlman, and Warren to Finck. Every gag was a killer— the hallway was a murderer’s row of humour writers and artists. This hallway is a route to the toilets, and I know that sounds bad— but being hung in the bathroom is the cartoonists’ equivalent of being hung in the Louvré. The cubicle wall and fridge door are also coveted real estate for the cartoonist.

The heavy lift of selecting 137 works from the past 100 years fell to

Liza Donnelly

, who, with the assistance of her husband (also a cartoonist), had been toiling away on this exhibition for months. Some original art was sourced from various collections, and others were directly from the artists themselves.
[Sidenote: For those of you as obsessed with New Yorker cartoons as me and Peter, you should subscribe to

Michael Maslin's Ink Spill

.]

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Related Post:

Live Walk-Through: 100 Years of New Yorker Art

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5:47pm

Just as Peter Kuper was about to show me another masterwork of minimalism, my phone buzzed with Uber surge pricing that makes you consider selling a kidney. I had exactly thirteen minutes to get from one society to another… I decided to brave the random reliability of the MTA. I slipped out the door and into the F train downtown to the Century Club on 43rd Street.

What is the Century Club, you ask?

Keep it down. They don’t like us talking about it. Stop asking questions.

I was sternly told-off after taking this photo. The doorman told me this was my one and only warning— No photos in the Century!

Despite the Century club —or association, as it calls itself— being media averse, the unmarked five-story palazzo on 43rd Street has increasingly become the private club of choice for a particular class of journalists, particularly those from the Times, whose office is only a few blocks away.

The club was originally established for artists, writers, and intellectuals. Over time, it expanded to include leaders in various fields, including law, science, and business. The club has a rich history and counts figures like Mark Twain, Winslow Homer, and J.P. Morgan among its members. Also, legendary cartoonists like Roz Chast, Arnies Levin and Roth, and Pat Oliphant. Though, they don’t like to divulge information like that. The only time the Century tends to be connected to a person’s name in print is in their obituary, a board member informed me.

It remains one of the most prestigious social clubs in NYC, with a strong emphasis on arts and letters. So, naturally, it’s a close second to the Society of Illustrators when it comes to up-market cartoon exhibitions.³

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Writers who talk about the Century get a genteel slap on the wrist from the head of the Century’s board, who will remind you that the Century, wishing to keep its name out of the public eye, discourages any media attention. No photos, no public mention of the Century, and certainly no assisting journalists who might be trying to do the same.

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6:07pm

I was led down to the sitting room, where Mohammed—a fellow caricaturist from Morocco—and I were soon stationed at a table, armed with markers and a stack of round coasters upon which we were to draw cartoons of esteemed guests for the ensuing hours…

Why round coasters instead of paper, you ask?

Well.

The event was a gala for the American Numismatic Society’s International Convention— an annual gathering of coin obsessives that is only rivalled by that of the International Philatelic Society’s Convention. Yes, these are real things, and they are very passionate people. The round coasters had the logo on one side, and were blank on the obverse— this was where Mo and I were to draw people’s faces where the effigy of a monarch would usually reside.

There should be a German word for the specific dread that comes with realizing you're about to draw caricatures of wealthy people on objects specifically designed to catch condensation.

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I have a wee bit of experience designing coins, having made commemorative editions with the Perth Mint and Royal Australian Mint in 2011 and 2021 to celebrate the 90th & 100th anniversaries of Ginger Meggs⁴. The video below is a sneak peek into my old studio at the time and the process of designing the coins. I learned a lot about numismatics, which gave me plenty of ammo for conversation with the guests at the event tonight.

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6:59pm

The numismatists approached our little station one by one, each with the barely contained excitement of someone about to be immortalized on bar paraphernalia. "I have an 1804 Silver Dollar," one ruddy-faced gentleman told me as I sketched his remarkably coin-like face. "Only fifteen known to exist". His tone had the same reverence I'd just heard in Peter Kuper's voice discussing Saxon's line.

Ok, in my defence, he was smiling when I drew him. Not so much once I showed him the finished product...

7:29pm

We scribbled furiously for hours as the very esoteric discussions about auction items continued. What I realised as I listened to them gab to each other passionately about different coin designs and various rare items was that these people were just as passionate about shiny round things as my people are about cartoons. When we get together for our version of this event (called the Reubens) we all lose time picking apart the great works of humour that have graced the pages of the New Yorker for the past century.

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Related:

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Wine and whiskey flowed as the night wore on, and before long, the guests were all ushered up to the dining room for the main gala event. Getting them plastered before ascending several staircases might not have been the wisest idea, but it made for very entertaining viewing.

8:31pm

I packed up my drawing kit, bid farewell to Mo, and bounded out the 177-year-old doors into an Uber. By the time I made it back to the Society, the place had transformed into something I'd never seen in my fifteen years of visits…