Al Hirschfeld was born in St.Louis, Missouri in 1903. When he was eleven years old an art teacher informed his mother: “There is nothing more that we can teach him in St. Louis.” With that one sentence, his family packed up and moved to New York City, where he was enrolled in the Art Students’ League. Hirschfeld has never had to convince anyone of his genius, it has always been apparent.

By the ripe old age of 17, while most of his contemporaries were learning how to sharpen pencils, Hirschfeld became the Art Director for Selznick Pictures. He stayed for about four years. Thus began a career that would forever be associated with Motion Pictures and The Stage. During this time, in 1923, his first published drawing appeared — this being in the noted newspaper, World. Soon after, The New York Times asked Hirschfeld to do a drawing for them based on a “then-new” Broadway play. The New York Times would repeat that same request for nigh 75 years!

Moving back and forth between Europe and New York in the 1920s and 30’s, Hirschfeld rented a garret in Paris where he worked, lead the Bohemian life with friends like Picasso, and grew a beard. The beard, Hirschfeld swore, was not a style choice, but the result of living in that cold-water flat. This he retained - the beard, not the flat- for the rest of his life, presumably because you never know when your oil burner will have a break down.

In 1943, now anchored in New York, Hirschfeld married one of Europe’s most famous actresses, the great Dolly Haas. Their marriage lasted for more than 50 years; in addition, it produced Nina. Nina was their only child, and Hirschfeld engaged in the “harmless insanity,” as he called it, of hiding her name at least once in each of his drawings. The number of NINAs concealed is shown by an Arabic numeral to the right of his signature. If no number is to be found, either NINA is hidden only once - or the drawing was executed before she was born. (During one week at my Gallery, a New York University student kept coming back to stare at the same Hirschfeld drawing for as long as an hour every day. When curiosity finally got the best of me, I asked, “What is so riveting about that one drawing that keeps you here for hours, day after day?” She answered that she had found only 11 of the 39 NINAs and would never give up looking until the rest of the 39 were located. “Oh,” I replied, “the ’39 next to Hirschfeld’s signature is the year. Nina was born in 1945!”)

There are a few rare exceptions to the NINA rule. In Hirschfeld’s first portrait of me, which is reproduced here in Fanzine137, you will see that his signature is followed by 3+2 B’s+2 J’s. The “3” is for 3 NINAs; but the “2B’s+2 J ’s?” Try to figure them out. The correct solution will be on my Gallery’s Website.

The challenge of finding the NINAs has become world famous. But Hirschfeld’s real reputation has been made from his ink and pure line, a medium in which I believe he has no equal. Although his first youthful efforts were with painting and sculpture, this quickly gave way forever to his love of pen and ink. “Sculpture,” he once told me, “is a drawing you trip over in the dark.”

I believe that Hirschfeld’s devotion to line comes from a fundamental aesthetic: his absolute respect for simplicity. One day soon after we first me, I asked him in my naiveté: “Sometimes you do a drawing of a complex play with elaborate scenery, extravagant costumes, and a large cast — yet the drawing is simple. At other times the play has a small cast, a plain set, and simple costumes — yet the drawing is complicated. Is it that when you have the time you do a complex drawing and when you’re rushed you do a simple one?” “No!” he replied. “When I’m rushed I do a complicated drawing. It’s when I have the time that I do a simple one.” Like his Art, Hirschfeld’s wit was always to the point. In fact, Hirschfeld was the funniest man I had ever met. In his presence I sometimes laughed so hard that I feared expiring. (In self-preservation, I swore off eating in his company unless there was also present an expert in the Heimlich maneuver!)

What you now hold in your hands, in this issue of Fanzine137, will give you an inkling of Hirschfeld’s work for the theatre and the silver screen. No man of the 20th century had seen more plays or knew more players. No one has ever had a keener eye for the look of a production than he. What are less well known, but just as brilliant, are Hirschfeld’s political drawings, drawings for Television, and privately commissioned portraits. Included in this issue is but one of Hirschfeld’s politically-inspired works, King Edward VIII Turns His Back On The Throne, (1937). The drawing was done, of course, before Nina was born—but presages Hirschfeld’s urge to hide an icon in his drawings. Can you find it?

Al Hirschfeld died on January 20, 2003, five months shy of his 100th birthday. He was married at the time to his devoted wife,
Louise Kerz Hirschfeld. As had already been planned, his birthday was celebrated by re-naming Broadway’s Martin Beck Theatre.
It is now the Al Hirschfeld Theatre.