Tom Bachtell

Tom Bachtell is a self-taught artist who is an illustrator and caricaturist for The New Yorker's Talk of the Town as well as other sections, contributing regularly for 23 years. He has done work for Entertainment Weekly, Newsweek, Forbes, Bon Appétit, Town & Country, Mother Jones, New York, Poetry, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Observer and London's Evening Standard as well as Marshall Field, Lands' End and the chamber-music series at the University of Chicago as part of his ad-campaign clientele. His brush-and-ink style is considered to be reminiscent of American cartoonists from the 1920s and 1930s. He was a finalist for the 18th Lambda Literary Awards as illustrator along with editor Robert Trachtenberg for the book When I Knew under the Belles Lettres category.

Early life and education

Tom Bachtell was interested in drawing as a child and was especially fixated on the older works from New Yorker cartoonists from the 1930s and 1940s such as Peter Arno, Charles Addams, James Thurber, Syd Hoff and Al Hirschfeld. His mother, an editor and writer, encouraged him to draw. The earliest portrait he did is that of his mother when he was 4 or 5 years old.

Tom graduated from Yellow Springs High School in 1975. In his early 20s he started a modern dance company. Bachtell continued to draw for "Goings on About Town" and other sections through early 1995; his subjects during that time included Kris Kristofferson, Madonna, and a young Allison Janney (at the time performing in a short-lived off-Broadway play Five Women Wearing the Same Dress).

Bachtell began drawing for the "Talk of the Town" section of The New Yorker with the 20 March 1995 issue. He drew four illustrations for that issue, including of Conan O'Brien and the cast of Absolutely Fabulous. At first Bachtell was one of a rotating cast of "Talk of the Town" illustrators, including Eric Palma, Michael Witte, Robert Risko, and others, but by June 1997 he was the sole illustrator for the section. Bachtell drew for "Talk of the Town" for 23 years; his final illustrations for the section ran in the 9/16 July 2018 issue. His work has appeared in various sections over the years; overall, Bachtell has drawn over 2800 illustrations for The New Yorker.

Other media

In 2005, Bachtell was a finalist for the 18th Annual Lambda Literary Awards as illustrator along with editor Robert Trachtenberg for the book "When I Knew" under the Belles Lettres category.

In 2016, Bachtell drew the book cover for Mark Singer's book Trump and Me, published by Penguin Random House.

In 2018, Bachtell drew Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for the CD cover of Notorious RBG in Song, performed by vocalist Patrice Michaels and pianist Kuang-Hao Huang. The CD was released by Cedille Records 8 June 2018.

Style and technique

Bachtell took only one life drawing class and avoided art classes in order to develop a natural style. He thought the art classes were strict, pompous, would make him obsessed with technique and weren't fun. In his current process, he superimposes different heads over others on paper and will draw a variety of caricatures in order to achieve the type of caricature he is looking for and remain adaptable.

Tom is currently an active chamber pianist and teaches and performs swing dancing, mainly the Lindy and Balboa.