Frueh, Alfred

Alfred Frueh (1880-1968) was a caricaturist for the New Yorker from the magazine's inception in 1925, until 1962. Although Frueh is best known for his caricatures, he also painted, illustrated books, and designed magazine covers. The artist summarized his early life as follows: "Reincarnated AD 1880 at Lima, O ... Graduated Lima Business College 1894 1/2. Farmed and worked in Brewery [his father's] 1894 1/2 to 1903. Went to St. Lewis."

According to Frueh, he discovered his professional calling as a youth while taking a course in Pitman's shorthand. When bored with the lesson, he would transform the shorthand symbols into caricatures of his teacher and fellow classmates.

Frueh landed a position in the art department of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch which led to his drawing of the editorial page cartoons as well as theatrical caricatures. After a trip to Europe during which he became friends with Matisse and Braque, Frueh accepted a position at the New York newspaper The World, where he drew cartoons and story illustrations.

After a second trip to Europe in 1912, Frueh mounted a traveling exhibition which showed in Boston, St. Louis and in New York at the Alfred Stieglitz Photo-Session Gallery at 291 Fifth Ave. Steiglitz characterized Frueh's work in his magazine Camera Work as follows: "...his show afforded a refreshing relaxation, in its sympathetic humor, from the tensions of New York life. Frueh is to be congratulated for the delightful manner in which he has depicted his impressions of our entertainers, displaying a pictorial sense of line and color, an ability to seize the significant characters of each individual and emphasize them with a gentle if sometimes mordant irony."

In 1920 and 1921 Life magazine published a weekly drawing by Frueh of a leading character or performer in a current play. In 1925 he left The World and joined the fledgling New Yorker magazine. Frueh had two drawings in the first issue of the magazine and executed its second cover. His last drawing for the New Yorker was done in 1962 at the age of eight-one.

Al Frueh may be best remembered for his series of linocut caricatures of theater personalities in the 1920s. The caricatures were noted for their stylized minimalist approach.