LIZA DONNELLY, NEW YORKER CARTOONIST AND RHINEBECK RESIDENT, SPEAKS ABOUT HER NEW BOOK AT BARD COLLEGE ON APRIL 19

A book signing of Donnelly’s Funny Ladies: The New Yorker’s Greatest Women Cartoonists and Their Cartoons and artist’s reception for an exhibition of her work follows the lecture ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—On Wednesday, April 19, New Yorker cartoonist, author, and Rhinebeck resident Liza Donnelly speaks about her new book, Funny Ladies: The New Yorker’s Greatest Women Cartoonists and Their Cartoons. Free and open to the public, her talk, “Funny Ladies: The New Yorker’s Women Cartoonists, Now and Then,” begins at 5:30 p.m. in the Weis Cinema of the Bertelsmann Campus Center, and is followed by a book signing and an artist reception in the George Ball Lounge of the Campus Center. Donnelly’s exhibition of current and past work will be on view in the George Ball Lounge from Saturday, April 15, through Sunday, April 23, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily. The program and exhibition are presented by the Office of Student Activities at Bard. “I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to speak at Bard College,” says Donnelly. “As a local resident for 18 years, I have always appreciated Bard as a wonderful resource for culture and innovative education. The history of comic art fascinates me—having found cartoons to be an enlightening way to study our society and ourselves—and I hope my observations will equally fascinate my audience.” “From Helen Hokinson to Roz Chast, some of the New Yorker’s cleverest and most original cartoonists have been women,” writes Katha Pollitt in The Nation. “Liza Donnelly dusts off the archives and brings the famous and the forgotten back into the light. Next time someone tells you women aren’t funny, give them this book and watch them try not to laugh!” Donnelly’s book Funny Ladies, with a foreword by Jules Feiffer and preface by Lee Lorenz, is an in-depth celebration of women cartoonists who have graced the pages of the New Yorker from the Roaring Twenties to the present day. An anthology of funny, poignant, and entertaining cartoons, biographical sketches, and social history all in one, Funny Ladies offers a unique slant on 20th-century and early 21st-century America through the humorous perspectives of these talented women, who have captured in pictures and captions many of the key social issues of their time. As someone who understands firsthand the cartoonist’s art, Donnelly is in a position to offer distinctive insights on the creative process, the relationships between artists and editors, what it means to be a female cartoonist, and the personalities of the other New Yorker women cartoonists, she has known over the years. Funny Ladies reveals never-before-published material from the New Yorker archives, including correspondence from Harold Ross, Katharine White, and many others. In addition, Donnelly has interviewed all of the living female cartoonists, many of their male counterparts, and editors and writers such as David Remnick, Roger Angell, Lee Lorenz, Harriet Walden (legendary editor Harold Ross’s secretary), Bob Mankoff, Eldon Dedini, Dana Fradon, Frank Model, Bob Weber, Sam Gross, Gahan Wilson, and Joe Farris, among others. Liza Donnelly has been a cartoonist for the New Yorker for 26 years. When she started, she was one of only three women cartoonists being published by the magazine. She has written and illustrated a series of children’s books about dinosaurs and has edited four collections of cartoons, including Mothers and Daughters, and, with Michael Maslin, Fathers and Sons, Husbands and Wives, and Call Me When You Reach Nirvana. She has also contributed cartoons and illustrations to the New York Times, The Nation, Cosmopolitan, and many other national magazines. Donnelly speaks frequently at schools on the subject of writing and illustrating childrens’ books, presenting talks and giving workshops. She has appeared as a speaker at the Thurber House and the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists’ annual convention. She was a guest panelist at the cartoon event of the New Yorker Festival in 2000. She is currently writing and illustrating two new books for children, The Rainbow and There’s a Hippo in My Backyard. A member of the Authors Guild since 1984, Donnelly was a founding member of the Cartoonists Association. She is on the faculty of Vassar College and Dutchess Day School and lives in Rhinebeck, New York, with her husband, cartoonist Michael Maslin, and their two daughters. No reservations are necessary for the lecture, which is on a first-come, first-seated basis. For further information about the event, call Andrea Conner, director of student activities and the Bertelsmann Campus Center at Bard, at 845-758-7098, or e-mail [email protected]. # # # (3/16/06)

This event was last updated on 04-23-2006

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