For over fifty years, Edward Koren’s distinctive hirsute and anthropomorphic creatures made him one of The New Yorker’s most instantly recognized and beloved cartoonists. From cultural trends to social dynamics to his deeply held concerns about the environment, Koren playfully documented a seemingly endless parade of human folly.
This retrospective of Koren’s New Yorker work spans his entire career, beginning with his very early cartoons and first contributions to the magazine in the 1960s, and also includes a small fraction of the thousands of preliminary sketches that he regularly submitted. Once a sketch was purchased, Koren enjoyed developing the piece for publication. He took great pride in his craft and continued editing and altering the drawing’s composition and character’s body language and facial expressions until the moment the piece left his hands.
Koren’s New Yorker work has always been more about a sensibility than a punchline. Forests, living rooms, a windblown lake—everything he drew teems with life. His characters are gleefully foolish and bemused. They are often world-weary and cranky but not caustic; clueless perhaps, but rarely mean-spirited. Koren may have had his doubts about humanity in general but his genuine affection for people and the communities he wryly observed is evident in every drawing. Koren (1934-2023) drew over 1,100 cartoons for the New Yorker, securing his own place within the magazine’s remarkable history.
Curated by James Sturm
Special thanks to the Center for Cartoon Studies.
