Al Hirschfeld Exhibitions to be Featured at New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and New York Historical Society

Today marks the 110th Birthday of Broadway legend Al Hirschfeld and the Al Hirschfeld Foundation announced that the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts will present a new exhibition on the artist this Fall. Additionally, the New York Historical Society will feature pieces from the collection in 2015.

The AHF writes:

Today is the 110th anniversary of Al Hirschfeld's birth. Gone ten years, he is still a constant presence on Broadway due to the theater named for him on 45th street, and of course in the hearts of many theater-goers. In the last ten years, the Al Hirschfeld Foundation has presented 22 exhibitions of his work across the country and in Europe. We have worked with the New York Board of Education to create a curriculum for grades K through 12 based entirely on his life and work. We have published three catalogues, primarily of images never collected before, and of course, created this website where visitors can look up everything he ever drew, painted, or printed by performer, production, publication, date, or genre. If you don't follow Al on Twitter of Facebook, you are missing your daily Hirschfeld selected from the same date in history. People have never had the opportunity to see so much of Hirschfeld's work.

For additional information, visit: http://www.alhirschfeldfoundation.org/news

Al Hirschfeld's drawings stand as one of the most innovative efforts in establishing the visual language of modern art through caricature in the 20th century. A self described "characterist," his signature work, defined by a linear calligraphic style, appeared in virtually every major publication of the last nine decades (including a 75 year relationship with The New York Times) as well as numerous book and record covers and 15 postage stamps.

Hirschfeld said his contribution was to take the character, created by the playwright and portrayed by the actor, and reinvent it for the reader. Playwright Terrence McNally wrote: "No one 'writes' more accurately of the performing arts than Al Hirschfeld. He accomplishes on a blank page with his pen and ink in a few strokes what many of us need a lifetime of words to say."

He is represented in many public collections, including the Metropolitan, the Whitney, the National Portrait Gallery, and Harvard's Theater Collection. Hirschfeld authored several books including Manhattan Oases and Show Business is No Business in addition to 10 collections of his work. He was declared a Living Landmark by the New York City Landmarks Commission in 1996 and a Living Legend by the Library of Congress in 2000.

Just before his death in January 2003, he learned he was to be awarded the Medal of Arts from the National Endowment of the Arts and inducted into the Academy of Arts and Letters. The winner of two Tony Awards, he was be given the ultimate Broadway accolade on what would have been his 100th birthday in June 2003. The Martin Beck Theater was renamed the Al Hirschfeld Theater.