Frank Modell 1917-2016

Frank Modell, a long-time New Yorker cartoonist, died Friday, at the age of 98, in his home in Guilford, CT.

He graduated from the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art and served in World War II in the signal radio intelligence company as sergeant in the US Army.

The Philadelphia-born native contributed over 1,400 cartoons to the New Yorker magazine beginning in 1946.

From the New York Times obituary:

"Mr. Modell was hired as an assistant to the magazine’s art editor, James Geraghty. 

"'I was a hit man,” he told The New York Times in 2000. 'If an idea was O.K.’d, Geraghty would see the cartoonist. But if it was a rejection, he would say, ‘Frank will see him.’ The mortality rate was worse than for babies in 1910 Egypt.'

"Mr. Modell’s first New Yorker cartoon appeared in the issue of July 20, 1946. It depicted a couple at the beach in bathing suits. The man asks the stupefied woman, 'I don’t suppose you happen to have a match on you, do you?'"

Links:

Frank Modell Web Site

Michael Maslin: New Yorker Cartoonists’ Elder Statesman Frank Modell Has Died at 98
New York Times Obituary: Frank Modell, Longtime New Yorker Cartoonist, Dies at 98

Mike Lynch Cartoons: TAKE A LETTER YOURSELF! Drawings by Frank Modell