Browse Items (39 total)

Young frequently designed and sent as many as 500 Christmas and New Year cards annually, and this one from 1938 features one of his many self-portraits and a reference to his several hell-themed books. As a working artist and small businessman he…

Print. In this card celebrating the New Year, Young, entering the penultimate year of his life, shows himself as a smiling old man, forging his way through “this whirld of woe” to bring his annual message of “faith, hope, and cheerity.”

Ink drawing. In 1943, Franklin Roosevelt was entering his twelfth year as president, was running for another four year term, and had four bright sons. With that limited information, the New York Daily News decided he was planning a dynasty, though…

Ink drawing. In the last year of his life, Young actually defended Franklin D. Roosevelt. In this image, Roosevelt sits at a desk covered with papers listing the threats he faces while George Washington and Abe Lincoln look on approvingly. Young’s…

Ink drawing published in The Nation (Washington, D.C.). Here, Young compares President Franklin D. Roosevelt to Wilkins Micawber from Charles Dickens’s novel David Copperfield, a perpetually destitute character who is convinced that his fortunes will…

Ink drawing. Young drew hundreds of gag cartoons during his life and often used racial or ethnic stereotypes in them. Readers of the day would have known that Abe and his well-dressed colleague talking about “Christmas spirit” were Jewish merchants.…

Ink & Crayon Drawing published in Art Young and Heywood Broun’s The Best of Art Young. (New York: Vanguard Press, 1936). Caption: “You stop following me! D'hear. Here I am all dressed up for a second term and you spoil everything." Young depicts…

Ink & Crayon Drawing. In the 1928 presidential election, incumbent Herbert Hoover was the Republican candidate, while Al Smith was the Democratic nominee. Despite significant differences between them, Young dismisses both of them as servants of big…

Ink & Crayon Drawing. Young again shows his socialist perspective in this cartoon about the 1929 New York mayoral election. Incumbent Democratic mayor James J. Walker and his Republican challenger, Fiorello H. La Guardia, are shown as “slap stick…

Ink drawing published in New Masses (New York). This cartoon refers to the 1920 German film Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari). Young has dressed President Coolidge as the sinister Dr. Caligari, echoed the cubist aesthetics…