Al Hirschfeld: 1903-2003
by Andy Ross

Al Hirschfeld, the master of the caricature and regular fixture on the New York Times theater page, died in his sleep in the morning of Jan. 20. He was 99. But while his life may have ended, his reign as master of his craft will continue long after.

His caricature style was not the bucked-tooth, ski-wearing stuff of mall or sidewalk hacks. Nor was it the bulbous foreheads and pinched noses of mocking editorial cartoons. Hirschfeld's style was graceful, sweeping and bold. It was a style thoroughly graphic and totally New York, a city that has always kept the smooth, curving grace of jazz age illustrations. (Look at Eustace Tilley, the dapper gent of New Yorker covers.)

With Hirschfeld, a single, flowing stroke of the pen could release a shoulder, then an arm, wrist and hand, at the same time giving mass and shape to an entire body hinted in empty white space. It was caricature not of exaggeration, but of catching an exact gesture, a precise pout and tweaking it to his style. Yes, at times there were big glasses and heavy eyebrows, broad shoulders and bulky hands. But there also were quizzical wrinkles, sad eyes and inaudible laughs. His was cartooning of subtlety, of a captured moment in time.

Caricature has rules. Eyes get simplified, sometimes down to slits or crooked letter s's. Foreheads and chins are important. So, too, is the strength, calm or fidgetiness of the hands. But most important is the hair. The hair makes all the difference in making the star immediately recognizable. Maybe that's why stars spend so much time on their hair. Certainly that's why Hirschfeld puts so many lines, hatches or curls into his. Especially for women, where kindness often demanded an almond face and a single dot for the nostril of a button nose. All that remains to build character is the hair. Working freelance for the Times and other papers and magazines since the 1920s, Hirschfeld built up a huge body of work. He drew musicians, movie stars, TV personalities and directors.

But mostly Hirschfeld drew the theater. Broadway, with its theatrical flourish, was the perfect fit for his brassy style. It gave him jazz hands and ear-to-ear smiles. It gave him big wigs and bigger costumes, in which he could hide the name of his daughter, Nina. That name, always hidden and always sought by his fans, was the only thing small or subtle in depicting a medium all about grandeur. Theater, so kinetic and loud so that it can be seen and heard from the balcony, had enough exaggeration on its own. His job was simply to pare it down to fit onto a page of newsprint.

In doing so, Hirschfeld served as a historian, marking moments of a culture immersed in and enthralled by entertainment. Cataloguing the 20th century, Hirschfeld showed the world the faces of an aging art form. Live performance, with its caked makeup and exhausting hoofing, has no existence beyond the moment it shares with its audience. Without celluloid or videotape, all theater had to make it immortal was Hirschfeld.

Like Carson, Hirschfeld was a rite of passage for many would-be stars, one of the few real indicators left that they had "made it." They were a lucky few, 7,000 of them, and they will be justly envied by those to come. Hirschfeld, too, will be justly envied by cartoonists to come, whose wrists will never achieve the grace and virtuosity his own wrists learned through natural gift and years of practice. Hirschfeld will be envied, admired and missed.

— Andy Ross (apross@earthlink.net)