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JULES FEIFFER:
Drawings, Cartoons, Book Art

April 26 - June 1, 2002
Tues-Thurs: 10:00-5:00 PM
Sat: 11 AM-5 PM
And by appointment

Jean Albano Gallery
215 West Superior Street
Chicago, Illinois 60610
Tel: 312/ 440-0770
http://www.jeanalbanogallery.com

"Let's face the music, and dance." -- A memorable line from an Irving Berlin song. Jules Feiffer has done both throughout an impressive career. Most know his work from his daily and weekly cartoons; wry, acute, painfully honest, and very modernly human. His illustrated books, especially those for children, are equally celebrated. His readers have so often focused on Feiffer's writing and topics, that his art seemed inevitable -- it always worked. "Jules Feiffer: Drawings, Cartoons, Book Art" will be at Jean Albano Gallery, Chicago, from April 26 through June 1, 2002. This exhibition of nearly forty works -- cartoon panels, book illustrations, and, most delightful of all, single watercolor and ink drawings -- highlights Feiffer's visual art: intelligent, urbane, and now, surprisingly, content.

Because words and ideas so dominated Feiffer's earlier reputation, one welcomes a chance to closely examine his art; particularly works which stand alone, without story or punch line. There is a delight to see in grown-ups of our troubled new millennium (grown-ups!) eruptions of Jazz Age Flaming Youth. In many Feiffer drawings, adults forget the world and simply dance. They give their soul to it. And one suspects it must be jazz. Feiffer's forms are, perhaps, caricatures, or else just exuberant, expressionist: his dancers contort and curve; the artist's pen and brush follow suit. Many of Feiffer's ink and watercolors recall Auguste Rodin's drawings of dancers made as they danced: a shorthand of body in musical flight. In some pieces, a coordinated, formal sense of reduced line and mass echoes to Henri Matisse. But Feiffer is thoroughly American: Fedoras, Freud, a restless melting pot of popular anxieties, and, here, free-form dance. (It was an American, Isadora Duncan, who led the birth of modern dance; Auguste Rodin who sketched her in the act.) Whatever affinities the art may show, Feiffer's content is distinctly U.S.A..

Of the nearly forty works in this exhibition, the majority are untitled, which makes specifics difficult. At Jean Albano Gallery there are narrative images, tight-lined in their rendering and focused in formal composition. Two of Feiffer's untitled illustrations, executed for the March 4, 2002 issue of The New Yorker, are on display. These reveal the demands of publishing on commissioned art. The first rendering (illustrated as second in this review: gallery exhibit No. 17) exploits a dual visual tension. The overall perspective here leads toward a blind vanishing point beyond; the anticipated light of the street lamp, however, draws the eye down to a crossword puzzle circumscribed on the sidewalk below. A detective in trench coat draws near that leitmotif. In the end, The New Yorker ran an alternative (No. 11). Here, the landscape format is wider, an urban skyline prominent, as a full squad of investigators comb a crossword puzzle pavement. Many viewers favored the first rendering, but the needs of editors and print design published the second. For Feiffer, challenge elicits discipline, and quality.

Feiffer has a masterful technique, but much of his commercial work has been the fruit of perfectionism. The artist will play with a hundred instances before an image is exactly The One. A visitor is offered evidence firsthand in his cartoon panels. In "A Dance to the New President" (No. 34), several images are drawn directly on the board: one was a selection pasted into place; two words are laid down to correct a balance of text working with image.

There is always the question of how commissioned art, and art by and for the artist, interact. Jules Feiffer was born in the Bronx on January 26, 1929, and attended Pratt Institute (1947-1951). During that period he worked as assistant to Will Eisner, a master of graphic narration (and creator of The Spirit). Art historian, Judith O'Sullivan, asserted: "From Eisner, Feiffer was to borrow urban setting, interior monologue, and a sense of benighted wonder at the absurdity of the universe." In fact, those traits probably came naturally to Feiffer. A viewer does feel however that his experience with Eisner not only nourished his graphic art, but enlivens his renderings still more. Feiffer's art is terse, direct, filled with movement that implies process, both in its execution and its content. His watercolors capture arrested moments, actions which imply a sequence and history, before and after what is seen -- just as a dancer in mid-leap implies a starting jump and a landing. Where, as in numerous Feiffer cartoons, the scene seems static, one is impelled to seek out the subtle nuance -- just as when the normally restive individual grows oddly still. There is a bit of poignant gesture, the finer elements of mime, an art allied to Charlie Chaplin here.

Neither drawings, nor even cartoons are the same as animation or film. Will Eisner held that pace and tempo, juxtaposition and conclusion, are a collaboration between artist and reader, not dictated by art and medium. Feiffer believes people want a quiescent approach, which explains his aversion to television -- things happen too fast. Feiffer's art leaves much to a viewer's own response, at each viewer's leisure. The artist supplies the subject and his own clues: the wry smiles, raised eyebrows, an expected 'yes,' an unguarded lapse of hope. A viewer takes each image accordng to his personal experience. At the show's opening, weaning art students a la nouveau chic (dressed in black and with analyses in every pocket) enthused as much as now respectable graduates of Chicago's free-thinking jazz club underground: Which is to say, there is enduring merit in this work.

Much like the later Rodin (or early Erte) in method, Feiffer resorts less to pencil prelims, and far more on direct and guided stimulus -- spontaneity. Focused but discarded trials lead to a final, deceptively improvisational image. None of the exhibited art seems labored or worked to a lifeless polish. That surprises and delights -- Feiffer is a hopelessly thoughtful personality. The artist's cartoons, psychological and political, have established that. Feiffer's original cartoon boards on exhibit will attract visitors. There are classic examples.

Jules Feiffer was drafted into the U.S. Signal Corps in 1951, during the Korean War. He developed a stammer, a disciplined anger, and, as a consequence, his first political cartoon. His book, Munro, chronicled the struggle of a conscripted four-year old to extricate himself from the crushing wheels of bureaucracy. Over the years, much of Feiffer's cartoon work has cast a critical eye on authority, dissecting the stupidities of power, the ability of incompetents in power to intimidate. As he turned fifty, Feiffer turned to the cartoon novel: Tantrum (Knopf:1979) was born. Eventually, the artist took on children's books as well. Eleven illustrations from his newest, By the Side of the Road (Michael Di Capua Books:2002), are now at the Jean Albano Gallery. His children's art, as well as his drawings, to some degree may reflect a mellowing of temperament, although his basic scepticism about authority, whether political, social, or parental, stands true to the gut instincts the artist grew up with.

Judith O'Sullivan made the point:

More important to Feiffer's artistic development than academic training or professional preparation, however, were the impact of his urban environment and the influence of contemporary Jewish comedians such as Mort Sahl, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, sources similar to those that had inspired Eisner. Indeed Feiffer's protagonists, most often depicted isolated center stage against a blank background, can be interpreted as stand-up comics spouting humorous monologues.

Among cartoon panels at Jean Albano Gallery are: Nixon Cartoon (Exhibit No. 2); "I act stupid..." (No. 16); "...Democracy?" (No. 20); "The Stock Market..." (No. 22); "...Perfection." (No. 25); "I wait..." (No. 30); and "A Dance to the New President" (No. 34). Followers will recognize them all.

The titles reflect Feiffer's interests. The text and linework exemplify his approach -- the telling gesture and a well-paced sequence of response among his characters. This is what gives life to his drawings as well. In his applied work, the artist dissects and lays bare what we want, what we ought, what we are, and how we must behave. And, taken into politics, well -- if we did not laugh, we would have to weep; perhaps even fear.

Dance has been a persistent theme in Feiffer's visual imagery. Dancers, thin and cerebral, (by today's jargon 'anorexic') emote their agendas with aesthetic panache ("A Dance to the New President" (No. 34)), while presidents with power... trip out their light fantastic song and dance to an appreciative public (Nixon Cartoon (No. 2)). Dance is significant in Feiffer's art. American poet, John Logan, wrote a particularly memorable line: "Oh, if I mock,/ it is without heart." In Jules Feiffer's drawings, perhaps not always and not everywhere, but even more than in his other work, a pulse of life-affirming energy -- a dance -- struggles with a wisdom of the world. Beneath the thinking, sceptic mind is a human heart that laughs because it will not cry: spontaneous images emerge through skill, concentration and intelligence; and a deeply human will for better things to come.

Why else would an artist write children's books? -- There are immediate rationales. (Original art from Feiffer's By the Side of the Road is in this exhibition.) Feiffer has noted earlier: "What I love about entering the children's book field at this age is being stupid. The problem with doing a weekly cartoon for as many years as I have, is that I am too sophisticated." He adds: "Being dumb about children's books, makes me child-like in the best way because it returns me to my innocence." Feiffer does note however: "There's an important part of a kid that should be hidden, but that always discomforts parents."

"Jules Feiffer: Drawings, Cartoons, Book Art" will be at Jean Albano Gallery, Chicago, from April 26 through June 1, 2002. It is worth a special trip. The gallery's website is: http://www.jeanalbanogallery.com.

--G. Jurek Polanski

Jurek Polanski has previously written and art edited for Strong Coffee in Chicago. He's also well known and respected among the Chicago museums and galleries. Jurek is currently a Visual Arts Correspondent for ArtScope.net.

Editorial Note: Books mentioned in www.artscope.net are often in print and may be purchased through this site's Amazon.com link. Art historian, Judith O'Sullivan, is cited from The Great American Comic Strip: One Hundred Years of Cartoon Art ("A Bulfinch Press Book":1990). Will Eisner has authored numerous books, of which Comics & Sequential Art (Poorhouse Press:1990) is particularly useful. John Logan is quoted from his "A Trip to Four or Five Towns," in Contemporary American Poetry (Penguin Books Ltd: 1974). Jules Feiffer is quoted directly from http://wildes.home.mindspring.com/OUAL/int/feifferjules.html. A video cassette, Feiffer's Follies (Home Vision:c1983), although slow-moving, offers an interview portrait of the artist. Additional background may be found in Jules Feiffer's America (Alfred A. Knopf:1982) and at http://www.julesfeiffer.com. "Let's face the music and dance" is best noted from Mark Sandrich's film Follow the Fleet (1936).