While Hirschfeld is most famous for his drawings of Broadway shows, he did not confine himself to the theater. Movies, music, and other celebrities were also often featured. Today’s piece is a Hirschfeld drawing of Eugene Ormandy, perhaps the longest serving conductor of a major orchestra in the US. Ormandy’s tenure with the Philadelphia Orchestra was more than 40 years. He was a big personality, and remarkably by today’s standard, no scandalous abuse of power has been revealed more than 30 years after his death. I think Hirschfeld’s rendition of him is beautiful in and of itself, whether you know anything about him or not. It was drawn for a magazine cover, and even though I think the cover clutter distracts, the colors and proportions look better in context, so I show it both isolated and on the magazine cover.
Eugene Ormandy, by Al Hirschfeld
The drawing in context
