Rea Irvin
| Rea Irvin | |
|---|---|
| Born |
August 26, 1881 San Francisco, United States |
| Died | May 28, 1972 (aged 90) Frederiksted, Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands |
| Nationality | American |
| Area(s) | Illustrator, cartoonist, art editor |
Rea Irvin (August 26, 1881—May 28, 1972) was an American graphic artist. Although never formally credited as such, he served de facto as the first art editor of The New Yorker. He created the Eustace Tilley cover portrait and the New Yorker typeface. He first drew Tilley for the cover of the magazine's first issue on February 21, 1925. Tilley appeared annually on the magazine's cover every February until 1994. As one commentator has written, "a truly modern bon vivant, Irvin (1881–1972) was also a keen appreciator of the century of his birth. His high regard for both the careful artistry of the past and the gleam of the modern metropolis shines from the very first issue of the magazine..."
Born in San Francisco, he studied at the Mark Hopkins Art Institute for six months, started his career as an unpaid cartoonist for The San Francisco Examiner. He also contributed to the San Francisco Evening Post. He also worked as an itinerant actor (for both stage and screen), newspaper illustrator, and piano player. In 1906 he moved to the East Coast. In the 1910s he contributed many illustrations to both Red Book magazine and its sister publication, Green Book.
Before World War I, Irvin contributed illustrations regularly to Life, and rose to the position of art editor. (Life the humorous weekly, and not to be confused with the more famous magazine of the same name published by Henry Luce). Irvin also contributed to Cosmopolitan when it was a serious literary publication. He illustrated Wallace Irwin's "Letters of a Japanese Schoolboy" in Life. He would later incorporate Japanese imagery in satirical kakemono for The New Yorker.
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