NEW EXHIBITION OF THE WORK OF CARTER GOODRICH

 If you like good drawing and you're in the vicinity of New York City, it would be hard to do better than the Carter Goodrich retrospective at the Philippe Labaune Gallery.  If you're not in the vicinity,  the show is worth a trip.

The exhibition includes an excellent cross section of Goodrich's art, including His New Yorker covers, his magazine and book illustrations, and his character designs for major animated films.  It's a rare opportunity to study his beautiful originals up close.

Note the vapor from the nostrils of the reindeer, the treatment of the boy's hair, the line of the tree. 

Even better from my perspective, it's a chance to view preliminary drawings and loose sketches which so often are the best way to see what an artist has.

Smart, funny, creative and beautifully crafted, Goodrich's New Yorker covers in this show remind us of a better era for the New Yorker, when its covers offered more charm, aesthetic grace and humanity.  

A prescient baby new year for the new millennium, made all the more relevant in our year of AI

The show also includes a number of proposals for New Yorker covers which, for some reason, were not accepted. If I were the art director of the New Yorker I'd show up at the gallery and see whether it's too late to retroactively accept proposals I'd rejected.  

Taking the plunge

I can't recommend this show highly enough.

The Labaune Gallery has become a gallery to watch for people with a serious interest in illustration. It has recently exhibited work by artists such as Peter de Seve, Mike Mignola, Moebius, Dave McKean and Frank Miller.

Owner Philippe Labaune has a somewhat unconventional background for the art world. He began his career in finance but had been a dedicated collector of narrative art for many years.  His formative influences included Moebius and Hergé.  He founded the gallery to fill what he perceived as a gap in American galleries presenting narrative art with seriousness and focus, emphasizing both its artistic significance and its narrative power. In the future, he says, the gallery wants to elevate the medium across borders.