Robert Weber

Robert Weber (1924 – 2016) was born in Los Angeles, served in the Coast Guard during World War II, and later studied at the Pratt Institute and Art Students League of New York. He worked as a fashion illustrator for Harper's Bazaar and other magazines before becoming a cartoonist.  From 1962 to 2007, Weber drew 1,481 cartoons for the New Yorker magazine, as well as art for 11 of its covers.  New Yorker Cartoon Editor Lee Lorenz marveled at his draftsmanship:  “Many cartoonists aspire to be artists; Bob was an artist who aspired to be a cartoonist — the only cartoonist I know who worked with charcoal. His drawings always suggested color to me.”  Fellow cartoonist David Sipress observed that “Bob’s great talent was his ability to create convincing, knowable, complex, fully formed characters in his cartoons, and to do it with a few deft strokes of his charcoal pencil. … Bob drew people in situations that were deeply relatable and turned them upside down with a hilarious, wonderfully incongruous line of dialogue. He was one of those artists who created a world with every drawing.”  When Weber contributed to “Last Laughs: Cartoons About Aging, Retirement ... and the Great Beyond,” a 2007 book of New Yorker cartoons, he was asked to list “three things you haven’t done yet.” He wrote:  “1. Voted Republican. 2. Fallen out of bed. 3. Turned down a glass of Champagne.”