Rea Irvin

Rea Irvin (August 26, 1881 – May 28, 1972) was an American graphic artist and cartoonist. 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 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 ..."

Cover of Life magazine in 1913 showing a Greek-style scene of suffrage activists led by one resembling Susan B. Anthony

Early career Born in San Francisco, he studied for six months at the Mark Hopkins Art Institute (later named the San Francisco Art Institute), and then started his career as an unpaid cartoonist for The San Francisco Examiner. The Honolulu Advertiser was among the other newspaper art departments that he served in. 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. He would later incorporate Japanese imagery in satirical kakemono for The New Yorker.

The magazine's first cover, of a dandy peering at a butterfly through a monocle, was drawn by Irvin; the dandy replaced at the last minute a drawing of theater curtains revealing the skyline of Manhattan. An alphabet drawn by the American etcher Allen Lewis, who had received training in woodcutting in Paris, was used as the typographical basis for the "Irvin type." Emily Gordon has written that "Irvin's own intimacy with classic form and craft, and his genial willingness to share that expertise ... allowed him to create a complete device: a design, a typeface, a style, and a mood that would be instantly recognizable, and eminently effective, almost a century later."

Quotation|Last week famed Cartoonist Rea Irvin broke into the "funnies" with a new full-page Sunday series ... His title is "The Smythes;" his characters, the conventional father, mother, small son & daughter, Pekinese pup; his theme, the conventional burlesque of U. S. middle-class home life. Sample episode: Mrs. Smythe insists upon buying Pekinese, to utter disgust of Mr. Smythe who snorts, "I don't know what you can see in that mutt." Mrs. Smythe, in desperation, goes to bed. Later, Tootums (the Pekinese) awakes and sneezes. Unable to arouse his wife, Smythe arises, grudgingly walks the floor with Tootums, finally melts, talks baby-talk to Tootums, nurses it back to sleep. Whereupon Mrs. Smythe, awake, triumphantly mocks her husband: "I don't know what you can see in that mutt!"|Time, June 23, 1930|

Retirement Six years before his death, Irvin and his wife retired to a home in Frederiksted, Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. He died of a stroke there at age 90 on May 28, 1972.