Celebrities, Humor, Comic Strips & Cartoons

Unauthorized Portraits

Name: Unauthorized Portraits
Author: Edward Sorel
ISBN: 9780375702044

by Edward Sorel

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Overview

From one of America's most brilliant satirical artists: his best, his funniest, his most deliciously wicked and memorable caricatures of the past thirty years. Here are history's great and near great - 166 heroes, rogues, fools, and geniuses: from Moses leading his kvetching people ("Some miracle! If I don't get pneumonia, that'll be a miracle") through the parted Red Sea waters, to George Gershwin teaching Fred Astaire a dance step, to Madonna seen as a "horseperson of the apocalypse"; from Brahms dozing off as Liszt plays, to Rodin auditioning models, and Reagan as Robin Hood, taking from the poor and giving to the rich. Here are such fabulous targets for the satirist's pen as LBJ, Nixon and the Watergate Gang, a holstered Jimmy Carter at high noon in the hostage crisis, and a poignant Dan Quayle as the central figure in a comic strip about a man who wants a little respect. Each of the book's three sections - "History," "Entertainment and the Arts," "Politics" - has a wry autobiographical introduction, and every drawing has its own pithy, informative caption.

About the Author, Edward Sorel

Edward Sorel was born and grew up in New York City. After graduating from Cooper Union, he and two classmates formed Push Pin Studios, where they designed award-winning book jackets and record covers. He later left to concentrate on caricature and cartooning. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, American Heritage, the New York Times, the Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, New York magazine, and GQ.

He and his wife live in New York City. He is the father of four children, but wants it known that he does contribute money to Negative Population Growth.

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Editorials

NY Times Book Review

A personal anthology by a cartoonist who is a foremost practitioner of what he calls "comic protraits that are deliberately hurtful."

Kirkus Reviews

A welcome review of the great caricaturist's work, ranging from the 1970s to the present, with sections on "History" (with a droll strip on God, a hilarious portrait of a variety of American presidents caught in illicit liaisons, and a young Truman Capote having tea with a wonderfully dour Colette); "Entertainment and the Arts" (featuring a blithe George Gershwin showing Fred Astaire the choreography for "Fascinating Rhythm," and a startling portrait of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow); and "Politics," which includes some of Sorel's most identifiable—and savage—work, such as his frequent, inspired pilloryings of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. There's an impressive continuity here: From his earliest work Sorel has demonstrated a powerful gift for rendering the personalities of the famous in a manner that is slyly exaggerated, psychologically penetrating, and utterly convincing. He also, as this generous gathering of work (principally from magazines) reminds us, has an extraordinary range of knowledge about popular culture. And he is a subtle and very effective colorist. A deeply amusing, even necessary, volume.