Ralph Barton (1891-1931)
„A lost Manhattan and a lost decade live again in the particulars of Barton’s hectic career,“ writes John Updike in his foreword to “The Last Dandy, Ralph Barton, American Artist” by Bruce Kellner. Ralph Barton, one of the most successful artists of the 1920s, mirrored the frantic decade in which he lived. Too much easy money, four failed marriages and his own manic-depressive personality all contributed to Barton’s descent into madness. As the glitter of the twenties gave way to the tarnished years of the Depression, before he turned forty, Ralph Barton killed himself.
One of the advisory editors and original cartoonists of The New Yorker, regular contributor of Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazar and Photoplay, Ralph Barton at the height of his power was perhaps the highest paid artist in New York City. Best known for his illustrations in “Gentleman prefer Blondes”, Barton also captured New York’s Belle Epoque like no other artist. No other illustrator was more widely imitated, and no other was so quickly forgotten when his dramatic life came to its early end. Only in the last few years has Ralph Barton been restored to his place in the history of American culture.
Ralph Barton left no written memoirs but a wonderful home movie with his friends: Anita Loos, Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Knopf, George Gershwin etc.
„A lost Manhattan and a lost decade live again in the particulars of Barton’s hectic career,“ writes John Updike in his foreword to “The Last Dandy, Ralph Barton, American Artist” by Bruce Kellner. Ralph Barton, one of the most successful artists of the 1920s, mirrored the frantic decade in which he lived. Too much easy money, four failed marriages and his own manic-depressive personality all contributed to Barton’s descent into madness. As the glitter of the twenties gave way to the tarnished years of the Depression, before he turned forty, Ralph Barton killed himself.
One of the advisory editors and original cartoonists of The New Yorker, regular contributor of Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazar and Photoplay, Ralph Barton at the height of his power was perhaps the highest paid artist in New York City. Best known for his illustrations in “Gentleman prefer Blondes”, Barton also captured New York’s Belle Epoque like no other artist. No other illustrator was more widely imitated, and no other was so quickly forgotten when his dramatic life came to its early end. Only in the last few years has Ralph Barton been restored to his place in the history of American culture.
Ralph Barton left no written memoirs but a wonderful home movie with his friends: Anita Loos, Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Knopf, George Gershwin etc.
