Gardner Rea

First day of married life ... off on the wrong foot.


Here's a food oriented cartoon by the one and only Gardner Rea (1894-1966).

Born in Ironton, Ohio (one of the legion of cartoonists originally born in Ohio), he sold his first cartoon at the age of 15 to the old LIFE Magazine. He moved to NYC after serving in the chemical warfare unit in WW1.

In 1920 he married Pratt graduate Dorothy Julia Calkins. They shortly moved to Brookhaven, where he designed and built a house.

Brookhaven would be where they would bring up two daughters and spend the rest of their lives.

Gardner Rea was one of the original New Yorker contributors. He drew his own cartoons and supplied gags to Charles Addams and Helen Hokinson. He was an aloof fellow, who, according to Ogden Nash, went into the city "only once a year" to see editors. He was still drawing until the end.