Born: 29 June 1893, United States
Died: 1 November 1949
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
The following is republished from the Library of Congress. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).
One of the best known and beloved cartoonists for the New Yorker, Helen Hokinson created appealing upper-class female characters that graced the magazine from 1925–1949. Admirers tended to regard them as charming, kind, ingenuous women given to short enthusiasms. Hokinson, however, thought of them as individuals, as can easily be inferred by her delicate drawing of faces and lush use of ink and washes. Publishing her first cartoons in the New Yorker in 1925, she evolved her endearing upper-class female characters and in 1931 began collaborating with writer James Reid Parker. Hokinson’s untimely death cut short her flourishing career during which she produced more than eighteen hundred cartoons and sixty-eight cover designs for the magazine.