The American Theatre as Seen by Hirschfeld: 1925-1961

With commentary by Brooks Atkinson, Michael Kimmelman, Brendan Gill, Maureen Dowd, Terrence McNally, Jules Feiffer, and Al Hirschfeld

Al Hirschfeld has been synonymous with Broadway since his first theatre drawing appeared in 1926. For seventy-six years, his theatre work was as much a part of a Broadway show as its opening night. His drawings, seen most famously in the New York Times, where his drawings appeared on average every other week for seventy-five years, reached all over the country, and millions more saw his vision of the shows than saw the shows themselves. His art also appeared on posters, programs, books, and album covers. For many, Hirschfeld was Broadway. The winner of two Tonys for Lifetime Achievement, he was awarded the ultimate Broadway accolade when the Martin Beck Theatre was renamed for him on his 100th birthday.

The two volumes of TheAmerican Theatre as seen by Hirschfeld showcases Hirschfeld’s greatest theater art from nine decades covering Show Boat to Hairspray. When the first volume of The American Theatre was published in 1961, Hirschfeld designed and curated the book, featuring 250 works from the first four decades of his career. This new edition revises and updates the book with a stunning color section. The second volume covers the other forty years of Hirschfeld’s career with nearly 300 drawings. Both books show and tell the story of nearly a century of the American Theatre, with a majority of the art not in any other book collection.

Al Hirschfeld was an American caricaturist best known for his black and white portraits of celebrities and Broadway stars. He was the recipient of two lifetime achievement Tony Awards and was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2002.