Society Nights

Last night the Society of Illustrators kicked off the fall season with an opening for an exhibit curated by Murray Tinkleman, “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby.” I must admit, I was kinda down on the idea of this exhibit—illustrators doing portraits of themselves at some point between birth and teenagerdom. I thought it was too much of an inside joke...I still think that but, from what little of the show that I could see through the crowd, it is clear that good artists do good work, even if it is baby pictures. I’ll need to go back when it's quiet to get a real look at it. Last night, it was packed elbow to elblow. The crowd included Vin Di Fate, Ted and Betsy Lewin, John Cuneo, Nancy Stahl, Tim Bower, Tim O’Brien, Cathie Bleck (who had a copy of her art book, Open Spaces), Donato Giancola, Scott Bakal, Peter de Seve, and many, many others. Lots of young faces as well, it’s always encouraging to see students at the Society.
The party continued up in the Hall of Fame gallery with the all-illustrators band, The Half-Tones: Barry Blitt, Joe Ciardiello, Richard A. Goldberg, Hal Mayforth, Robert Saunders, Michael Sloan, and James Steinberg. These guys are great illustrators and a great jazz/blues bad. Seeing artists of this caliber playing jazz in front of N. C. Wyeth, Mead Schaeffer, and everyone else on the walls...what gets better than that.

Here’s my POV at our table on the terrace: Donato Giancola, Arkady Roytman, Greg Manchess, Mark Korsak, Peter De Seve.The next exhibit will be a 30 year retrospective of Fantagraphics. It will run from September 27 - October 21.