Miguel Covarrubias Caricatures [Hardcover]

Beverly J. Cox (Author), Denna Jones Anderson (Author), Miguel Covarrubias (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 163 pages
• Publisher: Smithsonian Inst Pr; First Edition edition (January 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0874743400
• ISBN-13: 978-0874743401
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,771,858 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Putting a face on the Jazz Age, August 11, 2000

By 

The Sanity Inspector (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Miguel Covarrubias Caricatures (Paperback)

It's quite a shame that this book has not withstood the deluge of time. Miguel Covarrubias was a wonderfully entertaining caricaturist. If you can't find any samples of his work on the web, just try to imagine a cubist Al Hirschfeld, and you'll have _some_ of the idea.

Covarrubias drew mainly for the old _Vanity Fair_ back in the '20s. Clark Gable, Alexander Woollcott, Shirley Temple, Paul Whiteman, and other luminaries were portrayed in caricatures that ranged from art-deco to surrealistic to economical doodles, almost every one conclusively capturing the spirit of the subject. His eye became somewhat less keen as the Twenties rolled into the Thirties, and he couldn't relate as well to the mood of the new era. However, his second-rate work was streets ahead of most illustrators' best, so don't let that put you off. He seems to have drifted out of the profession well before dying in the late '50s.

Once again, it's a shame that this book is OOP. Covarrubias belongs in the Twenties pantheon he caricatured so incisively.