Artist/Maker Al Hirschfeld (American, 1903 - 2003)

A Night at the '21' Club

1953

Black ink on illustration board

10 1/2 x 28 in.

Promised gift of Elie and Sarah Hirschfeld, Scenes of New York City

IL2021.51.79

Al Hirschfeld’s panoramic cut-away of the celebrity-stuffed Midtown watering hole is an illustration for an article, “The Expense Account Aristocracy,” featured in the March 9, 1953, issue of Life magazine. In this two-page spread, one of five illustrations that the artist contributed to the story, he portrayed himself at the right, bearded, wearing glasses, and seated at the bar—in the lower-level hangout of the elite, its ceiling hung with whimsical toys. Caricatures of cigarsmoking businessmen, vamping actresses, and glamour girls, together with scores of “regulars,” join the proprietor, Jerry Berns, probably holding a menu, and Walter Weiss, the maître d’. Weiss, who juggled tycoons, movie stars, and politicians, alone could answer the terrifying question “who gets the best table and who goes to Siberia?” In short, he set the pecking order for the rich, powerful, and not infrequently pompous diners who regarded “21” as their club, fraternity house, and first-aid station. It has been a home away from home to “Everybody Who’s Anybody,” from the writing crowd of John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, and John O’Hara to the gamut of boldface names: to cite but a few luminaries in many constellations that gravitated to “21,” think Sammy Davis Jr., Judy Garland, Cary Grant, John F. Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, and Elizabeth Taylor. Known simply as “21,” the legendary restaurant is located at 21 West Fifty-second Street, not far from Fifth Avenue. Formerly a Prohibition-era speakeasy that opened in 1922 in Greenwich Village and was known as the Red Head, it is fabled for its wine cellar and celebrity-spotting opportunities. Comprising two townhouses, it has been featured in novels and movies—All About Eve, The Opposite of Sex, and Wall Street—and, perhaps among the most famous, The Sweet Smell of Success, in which Burt Lancaster plays newspaper columnist Walter Winchell who dined there almost nightly at “his” table, collecting gossip for the column that he often wrote on the spot. The prolific Hirschfeld, known by many as the “Line King,” began his career studying at the Art Students League and then in Paris. Upon his return to New York, the fabled Broadway press agent Richard Maney showed one of his drawings to an editor at the New York Herald Tribune, launching commissions from that paper and the New York Times. Hirschfeld’s fluid style, which relies on exaggerating his subjects’ features first defined in an outline, made him one of the most influential figures of mid-twentieth-century illustration and caricature. To forge his hallmark style, he usually used black ink applied with a crow quill, although he also illustrated books and magazines in color. One of his most famous caricatures is of Liza Minelli, which he drew with a single line, a traditional artistic tourde-force. Over his lifetime, Hirschfeld chronicled nearly all the major entertainment figures of the century, usually with affectionate humor. He also drew the cover of Aerosmith’s Draw the Line record album and consulted with filmmakers, including those for the “Rhapsody in Blue” segment in the Walt Disney film Fantasia 2000. This work will join three drawings by Hirschfeld in the N-YHS’s collections. COMMUNITY VOICE This drawing perfectly captures the whimsy and delight of ‘21’. I can hear the buzz of conversation, the tinkling of glasses. There is so much to see with a new discovery each time you look at it. In the same way, there is always something new that catches your eye at ‘21’—a gifted toy, an original piece of art, a fabulous frock. So many stories to tell and characters to meet. Avery Fletcher ‘21’ enthusiast

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