Edward Sorel

From Philosopedia

Sorel, Edward (26 Mar 1929 - )

Sorel, a noted Bronx, New York-born artist, is the son of Morris and Rebecca Kleinberg) Schwartz. He studied at Cooper Union School of Art, from which he received a diploma in 1951. With two others students, Milton Glaser and Seymour Chwast, in 1953 he formed Push Pin Studios, a venture that had a major influence on graphic design in the 1950s.

In 1956 he left Push Pin Studios, becoming a freelance artist and saying he felt guilty that "I was doing these cut-out pieces and not pulling my weight in the studio. Yet there I was, drawing the same $65 a week as Milton and Seymour." He left to become an independent. His illustrations have now appeared in American Heritage, Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Nation, New Yorker, Time, Vanity Fair, and The Village Voice.

Contents 1 Family and Impact 2 A Critique 3 Positions, Honors, Awards 4 "Five Writers in Search of Utopia"

Family and Impact

In 1965 he married Nancy Caldwell. Their children are Jenny and Katharine, and he also has a daughter and son - Madeline and Leo - by a previous marriage.

Sorel is author-illustrator of Making the World Safe for Hypocrisy (1972) and illustrator of Gwendolyn the Miracle Hen (1963), Superpen (1978), The Zillionaire’s Daughter (1990), Fine Encounters (1994), and Unauthorized Portraits (1997).

In 1988 he received the Page One award of the Newspaper Guild of New York for best editorial cartoon in magazines. His satiric drawings are noted for their wit and timeliness.

At the 1997 Freedom From Religion Foundation convention in Tampa, Florida, freethinker Sorel was one of the featured speakers.

In 1998 he received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the Art Institute of Boston. Also in 1998, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., devoted several rooms to an exhibition of Sorel's caricatures.

Sorel has illustrated many children's books, three of which he also wrote. Unauthorized Portraits (Knopf 1997) is one of several collections of his work.

In 2001 the Art Directors Club of New York elected him to their Hall of Fame, the first cartoonist since John Held, Jr., to be so honored.

A Critique

R. O. Blechman, describing Sorel, has written,

• Edward Sorel has been compared to Daumier, Hogarth, and, in our own time, David Levine. But another comparison may be to Herman Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener. When asked to act against his conscience, Bartleby's refrain was, "I would rather not." Edward Sorel would also "rather not" do many things. He would rather not bow to authority. He would rather not mindlessly honor the sanctity of any flag or religion, creed or institution. He would rather not follow the latest fashion or play anybody's game. What he would rather do is speak his mind, fully, freely, and artfully.

"What I enjoy attacking," Sorel has noted, "are things that everyone else is not attacking. Which brings me to my favorite target: organized religion." In 1967, he satirized influential Catholic Cardinal Joseph Francis Spellman, who had been military vicar general of the United States Armed Forces since 1939.

Positions, Honors, Awards

Sorel syndicated Sorel's New Service, 1969-1970, King Features.

He exhibited in Pushpin Studio retrospective at the Louvre, 1970, and other European galleries, 1970-1971.

One-man shows

Graham Galleries, New York City, 1973 and 1978

Galerie Bartsch & Chariau, Munich, 1986

Retrospective Exhibition, Cooper Union 1987

Susan Conway Galleries, Washington, 1992

Society of Illustrators, American Museum Illustration, New York City 1993

Davis and Langdale Galleries, New York City, 1994, 1997, 2006

National Portrait Gallery, Washington, 1999

Illustrator

Pablo Paints A Picture, 1961

Gwendolyn he Miracle Hen, 1963 (New York Herald Tribune Book Award for Illustration 1962)

What's Good for a Five-Year Old, 1969

The Duck in the Gun, 1969

Word People, 1970

Magical Storybook, 1972

Superpen, 1978

The Zillionaire's Daughter, 1990

First Encounters, 1994

Unauthorized Portraits, 1997

Johnny on the Spot, 1998

The Saturday Kid, 200

Literary Lives, 2006

Muralist

Waverly Inn, Greenwich Village, New York, 2007

Contributor

'American Heritage, Atlantic Monthly, Nation, New Yorker, Vanity Fair '

Recipient, Awards

Society of Illustrators, Art Directors Club, New York

Augustus St. Gauden's Medal, Cooper Union

George Polk Award for Satiric Drawing, 1981

Page One Award Newspaper Guild of New York for Best Editorial Cartoon (Magazines). 1988

Hamilton King Award, Society of Illustrators, 1990

John Singleton Copley Medal, Smithsonian Institution, 1999

Art Directors Hall of Fame, 2001

Karikaturpreis Deutschen Anwaltschaft, Wilhelm Busch Museum in Hanover, Germany, 2002

"Five Writers in Search of Utopia"

The 24-31 December 2007 New Yorker contained Sorel's satiric two-page article with drawings of "Five Writers in Search of Utopia." The five were

Sir Thomas More

who invented the word "utopia" to describe the ideal state in which everone is inspired by the divine spirit of God to be good. But More's writing career is shown to have been cut short by Henry VIII, who had him beheaded for supporting the Pope.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

An early feminist, Gilman believes all women's problems have been caused by cross-breeding with men. Depicted is a colony created by pathenogenesis in which there are no wars, no aristocracies, no men, no priests, and everyone is happy.

Edward Bellamy

In this version of Bellamy's Looking Backward, the hero wakes in the year 2000 to find that the government owns everything, everyone can retire rich at the age of forty-five, and men in rallies express their solidarity with one another.

James Hilton

Depicted is a Shangri-La that a High Lama has made wonderful, except peasants are depicted having to schlep all the heavy stuff up to the monastery high in the Himalayas.

Ayn Rand

This time the economy is in ruins because industrialists have vanished. John Galt leads the titans in a plan to destroy the collectivist economy by refusing to share their know-how. Striking industrialists then agree to return to power.

(See entry for George W. Lucas Jr. In correspondence on 31 December 2007, Sorel said he is both an atheist and a member of the Religious Society of Friends, the Quakers.)