Brian Coppola :: Shermund, Barbara

“Six Day Bike Race” (ca. 1930) by Barbara Shermund

Artist: Barbara Shermund (All)

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“Six Day Bike Race” (ca. 1930) by Barbara Shermund Comic Art

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Artwork Details

Title:	“Six Day Bike Race” (ca. 1930) by Barbara Shermund
Artist:	Barbara Shermund (All)
Media Type:	Pen and Ink
Art Type:	Illustration
For Sale Status:	NFS
Views:	815
Likes on CAF:	1 2
Comments:	0
Added to Site:	7/2/2019
Comic Art Archive:

Description

“Six Day Bike Race” (date unknown)
by Barbara Shermund (1899-1978)
7 x 15 in., ink on heavy board
Coppola Collection

From about 1890-1930, the six-day bike race was one of America’s most popular spectator sports. More or less, the most laps in six days was the winner. Often called “The Jazz-Age Sport,” it started in Great Britain and quickly spread. It derived from the six-day walking contests as a test of endurance (endurance being a genre of craze, giving rise to dance marathons, flagpole sitting, etc.), which used to bring out tens of thousands of spectators. A British promoter got the idea to put the people on bicycles. It was a big money sport for betting, and was featured in venues such as Madison Square Garden (which is likely where Shermund saw it happen) or the old Chicago Stadium. There was a 1934 film about six-day racing, and Edward “Nighthawks” Hopper made a famous painting about the sport in 1937 (supposedly after a few years of listening to his wife complain about his spending so much time at MSG watching the races). Shermund contributed to The New Yorker between 1926-1944, so I am estimating ca. 1930 for this piece.

One of the first female cartoonists at The New Yorker, Barbara Shermund (1899-1978) was one of the most edgy, whimsical, and cutting cartoonists of the past century.

Barbara Shermund produced 599 cartoons in the New Yorker between the ages of 26-45 (1925-1944). From Michael Maslin's (michaelmaslin.com) Ink Spill blog:

“Barbara Shermund (American, 1899-1978) Barbara Shermund, who died in early September, 1978, had the misfortune of passing away during a newspaper strike that affected the paper of record, The New York Times. An extensive search has turned up just one obituary for her, a four-sentence notice that ran in a newspaper covering the New Jersey coastal town where she lived for a number of years toward the end of her life.”

“Her subjects, executed in pen and ink and wash, were often hip young women, just a bit jaded – the sort that famously inhabited F. Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise. “

She once offered up this brief glimpse into her private life, saying she liked “fancy dancing and dogs,” says Liza Donnelly, author of Funny Ladies: The New Yorker’s Greatest Women Cartoonists and their Cartoons. “Barbara Shermund was one of the more prolific cartoonists of the early New Yorker. Her breezy drawing style and humor reflected the new attitudes of urban women in the twenties and thirties, and she can be considered one of the early feminist cartoonists.”

I bought up a bunch of her work and I have dedicated a CAF gallery to Shermund; and I am slowly (slowly) finding the publication location of these cartoons.

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About the Owner

	Brian Coppola Premium Gallery Owner
Joined:	March 2009
Last Login:	September 2025
Country:	UNITED STATES
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