Al Hirschfeld

 Obituary: Al Hirschfeld 1903-2003
posted April 30, 2003

"It is never my aim to destroy the play or the actor by ridicule," Hirschfeld wrote in 1970 of his theatre drawings in particular and the art of caricature in general. "The passion of personal conviction belongs to the playwright; the physical interpretation of the character belongs to the actor; the delineation in line belongs to me. My contribution is to take the character -- created by the playwright and acted out by the actor -- and reinvent it for the reader."

One of the rare critics of Hirschfeld's work -- perhaps the only one on public record -- was television show host Allen Funt, who felt that in his portrait Hirschfeld had made him look, "like an ape." Hirschfeld's famous retort: "I had nothing to do with it. That was God's work."