All the Art That's Fit to Print reveals the true story of the world's first Op-Ed page, a public platform that& mdash;in 1970& mdash;prefigured the Internet blogosphere. Not only did the New York Times's nonstaff bylines shatter tradition, but the pictures were revolutionary. Unlike anything ever seen in a newspaper, Op-Ed art became a globally influential idiom that reached beyond narrative for metaphor and changed illustration's very purpose and potential. Art director Jerelle Kraus, whose thirteen-year Op-Ed tenure far exceeds that of any other art director or editor, unveils a riveting account of working at the Times. Her insider anecdotes include the reasons why artist Saul Steinberg hated the Times, why editor Howell Raines stopped the presses to kill a feature by Doonesbury's Garry Trudeau, and why reporter Syd Schanburg& mdash;whose story was told in the movie The Killing Fields& mdash;stated that he would travel anywhere to see Kissinger hanged, as well as Kraus's tale of surviving two and a half hours alone with the dethroned peerless outlaw, Richard Nixon. All the Art features a satiric portrayal of John McCain, a classic cartoon of Barack Obama by Jules Feiffer, and a drawing of Hillary Clinton and Obama by Barry Blitt. But when Frank Rich wrote a column discussing Hillary Clinton exclusively, the Times refused to allow Blitt to portray her. Nearly any notion is palatable in prose, yet editors perceive pictures as a far greater threat. Confucius underestimated the number of words an image is worth; the thousand-fold power of a picture is also its curse.Op-Ed's subject is the world, and its illustrations are created by the world's finest graphic artists. The 142 artists whose work appears in this book hail from thirty nations and five continents, and their 324 pictures-gleaned from a total of 30,000-reflect artists' common drive to communicate their creative visions and to stir our vibrant cultural-political pot.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 5.0 / 5.0
work for the Times and for all time:
As an artist who once worked with Jerelle Kraus at the Times, way back in the Reagan era, I can say that she was a fiercely independent art director, with courageous political convictions and an outstanding aesthetic sensibility. Her use of famous artists as well as little-known American and European illustrators made the op-ed page look classic as well as classy, and invited readers to appreciate the fine art of illustration as they contemplated the meaning of the news of the day. The book is a wonderful... more info
Should be absorbed by every college student!!:
Finally, a real insider's perspective on the most powerful (for good and ill) newspaper in history!! Had Jerelle Kraus been in charge of the rest of the NYT instead of just directing the art there for 30 years, our planet would be SOOOOO much healthier right now in so many ways. Ahhh, to dream... Scott Pellegrino
Fear is a bad advisor:
Jerelles Kraus' book is the first that I see on this matter.
Editors too often go down on their knees thinking that the reader will not understand- or will be offended by a critical visual approach.
This by itself is offending the intellect of their readers.
Fear is a bad advisor.
Opinionated applied imagery, drawings as well as photographs, can be so much more interesting than `just illustrations' to enlighten a grey text surface.
André Thijssen, [...]
A fabulous feat...:
A fabulous feat of memory, a fearless totality of tales, an awesome anthology of art-driven anecdotes that fixes the Op Ed illustrative phenomenon in its milieu for all time.
Craig Dixon
