Museum Collections

As the New Yorker magazine's first art editor, Irvin (1881-1972) created a style that continues to define the publication to this day--witty, urbane, and socially and culturally aware. Born in San Francisco, Irvin started his career in illustration as an unpaid cartoonist for The San Francisco Examiner. His only formal training consisted of six months' study at the Hopkins Art Institute. At the age of 25, he moved to the East Coast and was soon a regular contributor to Life and Cosmopolitan magazines. In 1924, Irvin joined an advisory board to help launch The New Yorker. For the cover of the magazine's debut issue the next year, Irvin created Eustace Tilley, a smartly attired dandy with a monocle and top hat. This amusing and worldly, yet somewhat detached, character embodied the spirit of the new publication. Tilley quickly became Irvin's signature piece and has reappeared on the magazine's cover every year since, with one exception--1994.