Gertrude and George

Richard Merkin, Gertrude and George, 1979, pastel on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation, 1985.30.45, © 1979, Richard Merkin

Exhibition Label

Richard Merkin was a quintessential New Yorker whose paintings and illustrations celebrated America of the 1920s and 1930s. A socialite and self-proclaimed dandy, Merkin did almost three hundred illustrations for The New Yorker. He contributed to Harper’s and the New York Times Sunday Magazine, and from 1988 to 1991, he wrote a monthly column called “Merkin on Style” for Gentlemen’s Quarterly. The ineffable wit that kept him in demand as an illustrator emerges in Gertrude and George, in which a cat smoking a cigarette smiles from his perch beside a cocktail glass.

Modern American Realism: The Sara Roby Foundation Collection, 2014

Title

Gertrude and George

Artist

Richard Merkin

Date

1979

Location

Not on view

Dimensions