“Drawings for New York Periodicals” — Chris Ware

I went to the Adam Baumgold Gallery this weekend to see the work of artist/cartoonist/illustrator, Chris Ware. His work manages to seamlessly to cross categories between the art world and the commercial world. He was included in the 2002 Whitney biennial, he has published about 5 graphic novels, and illustrated a number of covers for The New Yorker. The show was entitled, “Drawings for New York Periodicals.” Unfortunately, Saturday was the last day of the show at the gallery, but keep your eye out for his next show because his work is a lot of fun and graphically rich. My favorite thing about the exhibit was seeing all his hand drawn type in detail. The exhibited works were original boards — black and white drawings done in ink. Best of all, you could see layers of sketches and ruling lines in photo blue pencil below the final inked graphics and type. I have posted some of his drawings from the show below and a few details to show the sketch quality underneath. I always love seeing an artist’s process exposed. The show specifically featured four different Thanksgiving cover drawings that were published simultaneously by The New Yorker in 2006: His process is really interesting because everything is rendered by hand but he colors his pieces digitally. I am more drawn to the unfinished black and white boards.