Jacob Burck
Jacob Burck | |
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Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning |
Jacob Burck (née Yankel Boczkowsky, January 10, 1907 – May 11, 1982) was a Polish-born Jewish-American painter, sculptor, and award-winning editorial cartoonist. Active in the Communist movement from 1926 as a political cartoonist and muralist, Burck quit the Communist Party after a visit to the Soviet Union in 1936, deeply offended by political demands there to manipulate his work.
Upon his return to the United States, Burck drew political cartoons for two large mainstream dailies, the
Biography
Early years
Jacob Burck was born Yankel Boczkowsky on January 10, 1907, in
Burck emigrated to the United States at age six and lived in
When he was seventeen years old, Burck travelled to New York City to study at the Art Students League of New York (ASL) under Albert Sterner and Boardman Robinson.[4] Burck's circle of friendships with his fellow students there, such as Reginald Marsh, and the other artists, intellectuals, and political activists of 1930s New York, were to shape the course of his career. At the ASL he met and later married fellow art student Esther Kriger, in 1930.
New York years
Burck first worked professionally as an artist as a portrait painter, an occupation which he pursued full-time for one year.[4] He subsequently worked for a short time as a sign painter, his 1935 official biography claiming this decision was related to Burck's belief that this constituted "a more wholesome means of earning a living [than painting society portraits]."[4] Nevertheless, Burck continued his artistic practice, including portraiture.[5]
Burck joined the revolutionary movement in 1926, while still a teenager.
Burck's political cartoons were a regular feature in the Daily Worker's annual collection, Red Cartoons, published each year from 1926 to 1930.[6] His material was also gathered for a full-length book in 1935, a 248-page work entitled Hunger and Revolt.[6]
Burck was close friends with
In 1931, Burck was a founding Director of the "New York Suitcase Theater", along with playwright Paul Peters, poet Langston Hughes, and writer Whittaker Chambers.[9] Burck's work was exhibited in the Whitney Museum of American Art's First Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Sculpture, Watercolors and Prints, which opened in December, 1933.[10]
Evidence presented to the
In 1934, "The American Scene No. 1: A Comment upon American Life by America's Leading Artists" was published, a portfolio of six lithographs by Burck and his colleagues, George Biddle, Adolf Dehn, George Grosz, Reginald Marsh, and José Clemente Orozco.[12]
Burck was an accomplished
Chicago years
After returning from the USSR in 1937, Burck went to work as an editorial cartoonist for the
Burck won the
Burck's continued style and criticism through cartooning of politicians, hypocrisy, and social injustice left him an open target during the
Burck's defense was able to demonstrate "a long record of anti-communism... [was] exemplified in his political cartoons."[19] Charges were eventually dropped after a sustained legal defense funded personally by the publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times, Marshall Field III.[19] The deportation order was formally vacated by an act of the United States Congress in April 1957.[20]
Burck's syndications dropped drastically because of the government case, but he continued to produce daily editorial cartoons for the Chicago Sun-Times, successor to the Chicago Daily Times, over a 44-year career.
A long-time member of the Cliff Dwellers Club in Chicago, Burck received the 1971 Merit Award "for distinguished service to the arts in Chicago."
Burck's final published editorial cartoon appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times on February 23, 1982.[21] Over the course of his career he was responsible for drawing over 10,000 editorial cartoons.[2]
Personal life and death
In 1930, Burck married Esther Kriger, a fellow artist; they had two children.[2]
Jacob Burck died on May 11, 1982, at the age of 75, of injuries sustained in a fire in his home caused by a smoldering cigarette.[21] He was preceded in death by his wife (1975) and survived by children[2] Joseph M. Burck (senior designer at Marvin Glass and Associates) and Conrad Burck, an art dealer who showed, among others, Egon Weiner,[22] William Christoffersen[23] and Francisco Farreras.[citation needed]
Works
Art
Burck was a prominent painter and sculptor through the 1960s and 1970s.[24]
Burck's original works were collected by several presidents of the United States including
His evocative portrait of Hugh Hefner, the smoke from Hef's pipe forming a group of writhing bodies, hung in the Playboy mansion in Chicago.[32][33]
His work is part of the "Capital and Labor" portion of the Library of Congress online exhibit Life of the People: Realist Prints and Drawings from the Ben and Beatrice Goldstein Collection, 1912–1948.[34]
Books
According to art historian Andrew Hemingway, "Burck was singled out for special treatment in 1935 when the Daily Worker published a 250-page volume of his cartoons under the title Hunger and Revolt. The book also contained 11 essays by prominent people including John Strachey and Henri Barbusse.[3][4]
(In addition, Hemingway notes, "Within the John Reed Club Burck had a reputation as a formidable polemicist who was widely read in the 'history and theory of art.' His occasional pieces in the Daily Worker certainly show him as a capable writer, and in 1935 he published an article "For Proletarian Art" as part of a debate in the
- Red Cartoons from the Daily Worker 1928] (contributor)[35]
- 1929 Red Cartoons reprinted from The Daily Worker (1929)[36]
- Graft and Gangsters (1931)[37]
- Hunger and Revolt: Cartoons (1935)[38]
- Futuro: Cartones de Jacob Burck (1935)[39]
- Our 34th President: Ike's Campaign, Election and Inauguration in Historic Cartoons] (1953)[40]
Awards
- 1941: Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning for "If I Should Die Before I Wake"[41][42]
- 1942: Sigma Delta Chi Award, inaugural prize for editorial cartooning from the Society of Professional Journalists
References
- ^ "Local history | Virtual Shtetl".
- ^ a b c d e Brennan, Elizabeth A.; Elizabeth C. Clarage. Who's Who of Pulitzer Prize Winners. Who's Who. p. 141.
- ^ a b c d Hemingway, Andrew (October 2015). "Rise and Fall of 'Proletarian Art,' Part II". Detroit: Solidarity. Retrieved 4 November 2016.
- ^ a b c d e f Burck, Jacob (1935). Hunger and Revolt: Cartoons. New York: The Daily Worker. p. 247.
- ^ a b "Sherwood Winner for a Third Time". New York Times. May 6, 1941.
- ^ a b c Andrew Hemingway, Artists on the Left: American Artists and the Communist Movement, 1926-1956. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002; pg. 31.
- ^
Chambers, Whittaker (1952). Witness. Random House. pp. 259–260, 267, 278. ISBN 0-89526-571-0.
- ^ Jewell, Edward Alden (November 9, 1932). "Art in Review". New York Times.
- ^ Tanenhaus, Sam (1997). Whittaker Chambers: A Biography. Random House.
- ^ "First Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Sculpture, Watercolors and Prints".
- ^ a b "Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States: Appendix — Part IX: Communist Front Organizations". US GPO. 1944. pp. 842 (Labor Defender), 852 (Daily Worker, New Masses, IWO), 939, (John Reed Clubs), 941 (JAFRC), 960 (Labor Defender). Retrieved 28 March 2021.
- ^ "The American Scene No. 1: A Comment upon American Life by America's Leading Artists".
- ^ a b c Hemingway, Artists on the Left, pg. 33.
- ^ New York Times, February 10, 1935
- ^ a b c d "Deportation Order". Time magazine. July 20, 1953. Archived from the original on December 22, 2008.
- ^ "Poison pen pals". Northern Illinois University. Retrieved May 18, 2013.
- ^ Time (magazine)
- ^ "EX-RED DISPUTED ON HIS TESTIMONY; Affidavits Contradict Crouch, McCarthy Hearing Figure, in Cartoonist's Case". The New York Times. 24 June 1954.
- ^ a b "Friends and Elations," Time magazine, April 19, 1954.
- ^ Huston, Luther A. (April 17, 1957). "Cartoonist Wins Deportation Bar: Congress Suspends Order Against Jacob Burck and 130 Others". New York Times. p. 17.
- ^ a b "Obituary: Jacob Burck". New York Times. May 13, 1982.
- ^ "Modern Art Exibit [sic] Poster Egon Weiner Wall Sculptor Chicago Abstract Framed Show – Mid Century Sacramento". Archived from the original on 2021-07-18.
- ^ "William Christoffersen".
- ^ "List of 1970 Sculpture Exhibitions". Art Institute of Chicago. Archived from the original on April 6, 2012. Retrieved May 18, 2013.
- ^ "Jacob Burck. The Lord Provides from the American Scene, no. 1. 1934, published 1935 | MoMA".
- ^ "Artist Info".
- ^ "Jacob Burck".
- ^ "The Lord Provides".
- ^ "The American Scene No. 1: A Comment upon American Life by America's Leading Artists".
- ^ "Jacob Burck". Cleveland Museum of Art. Retrieved May 18, 2013.
- ^ "Jacob Burck: The Lord Provides". University of Michigan. Archived from the original on October 21, 2007. Retrieved May 18, 2013.
- ^ "Hef - Christie's, Sale 1325, Lot 52". Christie's. Retrieved May 18, 2013.
- ^ Mojica, Jason (2003). "Playboy at 50". The Modernist.
- ^ "Life of the People, by Jacob Burck". Library of Congress. 20 October 1999. Retrieved May 18, 2013.
- ^ "cartoons by Jacob Burck, Fred Ellis". Red Cartoons from the Daily Worker 1928. Daily Worker. 1928. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
- ^ "cartoons by Jacob Burck, Fred Ellis". 1929 Red Cartoons Reprinted from the Daily Worker. Daily Worker. 1929. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
- ^ Gannes, Harry (1931). "cartoons by Jacob Burck". Graft and Gangsters. Workers Library Publishers. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
- ^ Burck, Jacob (1935). "essays by John Strachey, Henri Barbusse". Hunger and Revolt: Cartoons. New York: The Daily Worker. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
- ^ Burck, Jacob (March 1935). Futuro: Cartones de Jacob Burck. Retrieved 2 January 2022.
- ^ Burck, Jacob (1953). Our 34th President: Ike's Campaign, Election and Inauguration in Historic Cartoons. Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
- ^ "The Pulitzer Prizes".
- ^ "A Month of Pulitzer Prize Winning Cartoons - Day 9". 10 March 2009.
External links
- Interview with Studs Terkel on April 27, 1959
- "If I Should Die Before I Wake." 1941 Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoon, accompanied by biographical information pulled from an earlier incarnation of this Wikipedia biography. Retrieved October 18, 2009.
- Index to Jacob Burck's Work on the Internet, Art Cyclopedia. Retrieved October 18, 2009.
- Jacob Burck Internet Archive at Marxists Internet Archive. Retrieved October 19, 2009.
- Hugh Hefner portrait in The Modernist
- Comrades in Art: Jacob Burck
- Comrades in Art: Esther Kriger