Al Hirschfeld’s work represents a veritable archive of American popular culture over nine decades. To look at it is to get a remarkably fresh view of what was happening whether on stage, screen, or on a turntable, tape deck or any sort of listening device. He not only recorded cultural life of the U.S., Hirschfeld helped to define.
Eight decades into his career, Hirschfeld captured many of the essential elements of the 1990s. In the theater, he recorded the last vestige of the Golden Age on Broadway, and the start of a new chapter. In film he again drew the biggest pictures, and the biggest stars (even as he become one himself with the release of the Oscar nominated documentary, The Line King: The Al Hirschfeld Story, released in 1996). Television continued to provide him with ample subjects to draw, and he documented the central role many shows played in their audiences’ lives. And whether it was pop or opera, Hirschfeld...
