Barbara Shermund (June 26, 1899 - September 9, 1978) was an American cartoonist, best known for being one of the first gag cartoonists to gain prominence in the pages of The New Yorker magazine, to which she contributed almost 600 cartoons and eight covers between 1926 and 1944.
Early Life[]
Shermund was born in San Francisco, California, to Henry and Fredda (Cool) Shermund, an architect and sculptor respectively. Her first published work was an illustration called "On the Farm" in the San Francisco Chronicle's children's page (based on a 19th century art cut-out provided by the paper itself) about two months shy of her ninth birthday; the newspaper commented that the illustration was "a good example for others to follow" and "show[ed] talent and artistic genius."[1] She also got a short story published as part of a writing contest in The San Francisco Call in September 1911, at the age of 12.[1] In 1912, she performed her first recorded act of feminist activism as part of an octet singing at a benefit for the League of the Protection of Motherhood, a society founded to support mothers of non-marital children and encourage sex education.[1][2]
Shermund's own mother died in October 1918 at the age of 39 of intracranial pressure, possibly brought on by the influenza pandemic of that time.[3][4] Years after her mother's death, her father remarried a woman eight years her junior, and they were eventually estranged.[4]
After high school, Shermund studied at the California School of Fine Arts and in 1919, she was awarded an honorable mention for a scholarship to the Art Students League in New York City.[5] Whether or not, the award included any support towards her taking classes at the Art Students League, it does not appear if she ever did.
Career[]
In 1925, she traveled to New York City on a visit but never returned to live in California. However, she never seems to have stayed in one place for long.[6] There are at least a dozen addresses of record she supposedly lived in and has not yet been found in the U.S. Censuses of 1920, 1930, or 1940.[1] She traveled widely across the United States, Canada, and Europe.[6]
The New Yorker launched in February 1925, intended to be a sophisticated humor magazine for a modern, cosmopolitan audience, or as New Yorker co-founder Harold Ross put it in a 1925 prospectus for the magazine, "not…for the old lady in Dubuque [Iowa]". Shermund's first cartoon was published in The New Yorker in January 1926, and her cartoons quickly became the voice of the "New Woman" of the era. She depicted women drinking, smoking, making sexual and queer innuendos, and discussing aspects of the new independence for women of the era.[7]
Shermund was one of the most in-demand cartoonists of the early days of The New Yorker: she was published frequently, often paid in advance, and her absence was the source of some anxiety for editor Katherine White whenever she traveled.[8] However, a new art director in 1939, James Geraghty, was much less enamored of her work, in part due to the publication's evolution from a humor magazine to a prestigious journal of literature and political commentary, compounded by the looming Second World War.[9] Geraghty was also much more blunt and abrasive than White, which led to the departure of many early-era cartoonists from the magazine.[10] Shermund began to work more with writers, but the cartoons were often rejected for not meeting the tone and standard of her earlier work; by 1944, she ceased submitting cartoons to The New Yorker entirely.[11]
After leaving The New Yorker, she began running "Shermund's Sallies" in Pictorial Review magazine, which was also syndicated by King Features. She also became a frequent contributor to Esquire magazine, as well as Collier's, Life, Photoplay, and The Saturday Evening Post.
Shermund never had a studio and preferred to draw at her kitchen table on heavy watercolor paper, and would sleep with a pencil and notepad under her pillow to write down ideas whenever they struck her; unlike many gag cartoonists of the era, she rarely worked with other writers.[12]
Later Life & Death[]
At some point, she married abstract artist Ludwig Sander, but the details of the marriage are unclear, and they had divorced by the time he died in 1975.[4][13]
In 1950, she became one of the first women (along with Hilda Terry and Edwina Dumm) admitted to the National Cartoonists' Society. By 1959, she had settled in Sea Bright, New Jersey, then later moved into Ivy House Nursing Home in Middletown Township, New Jersey, where she died in September 1978. Her death occurred during a newspaper strike, so no obituary was published, and her cremated remains stayed unclaimed at the John Pfleger Funeral Home until 2013.[4] Her niece, Amanda Gormley, claimed her ashes and intends to bury them with her mother at Cypress Lawn in Colma, California, in May 2019.[4]
Works[]
Publications[]
- 1921: A City of Caprice (2nd ed.), illustrations; written by Neill Compton Wilson
- 1926-1944: Cartoons and covers, The New Yorker
- 1931: Stuffed Shirts, illustrations; written by Clare Boothe Brokaw (later Luce)
- 1939: “Miracle Men at Work to Make You Lovelier”, Photoplay
- 1944-1957: "Shermund's Sallies", Pictorial Review/King Features Syndicate
Exhibitions[]
- 1923-24: San Francisco Art Academy
- 1934: Salons of America
- 1943: de Young Museum, San Francisco
- 1964: International Cartoon Exhibition, Belgium
- 1964: San Diego Exhibition
- 2018-19: Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, Ohio State University
External Links[]
- Holtz, Allan. "Obscurity of the Day: Shermund's Sallies", Stripper's Guide. Published 26 Dec 2018.
- University of Michigan online gallery
Sources[]
- Barbara Shermund Burial Fund, GoFundMe. Created 19 Dec 2018.
- Donnelly, Liza. Funny Ladies: The New Yorker's Greatest Women Cartoonists and Their Cartoons, New York: Prometheus Books, 2005 (ISBN 1591023440). pp. 54-64, 70, 74, 81-83, 98-102, 104, 108, 114, 203-204.
- Jay, Alex. "Ink-Slinger Profiles: Barbara Shermund", Stripper's Guide. Published 27 Dec 2018.
- Kennedy, Martha H. Drawn to Purpose: American Women Illustrators and Cartoonists, Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2018 (ISBN 9781496815927). pp. 33, 111, 122-124, 215.
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Jay; Accessed 4 Mar 2019.
- ↑ "Stoecker, Helene (1869–1943)", Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia (encyclopedia.org). Published 2002. Accessed 4 Mar 2019.
- ↑ Fredda Cool Shermund, California, San Francisco Area Funeral Home Records, 1835-1979 (familysearch.org). Accessed 4 Mar 2019.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Burial Fund campaign, GoFundMe. Accessed 4 Mar 2019.
- ↑ The International Studio, Volume 67: June 1919. pp 4-6.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Donnelly, p. 54.
- ↑ Donnelly, p. 55, 59.
- ↑ Donnelly, p. 58.
- ↑ Donnelly, p. 89-92.
- ↑ Donnelly, p. 98.
- ↑ Donnelly, p. 99-102.
- ↑ Donnelly, p. 56-57
- ↑ Glueck, Grace. "Ludwig Sander, Artist, Dead; Noted for His Cool Abstracts", The New York Times. Published 5 Jul 1975. Accessed 4 Mar 2019.
View Barbara Shermund's memorial at Find-A-Grave.
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