The New Yorker in Westport

Albert Hubbel ~ August 20, 1973 ~ Compo Beach

Noepe readers are familiar with our penchant for sharing covers and cartoons from The New Yorker magazine. We grew up reading it every week, and favorite covers and cartoons were often hung in picture frames, shellacked to bathroom walls, or stuck to the refrigerator door. We're now third-generation subscribers, still save some covers now and then, but mostly share favorite images digitally. An added family twist was that Rea Irvin's cover of the monocled dandy Eustace Tilley inspecting a butterfly, the magazine's inaugural cover in 1925 and published every February since, coincided with my parent's February 20, 1954 wedding day and anniversary.

Imagine our delight when the Westport Historical Society chose to mount its current exhibit, Cover Story: The New Yorker in Westport. We were always aware while growing up there in the 50s, 60s and 70s that Westport was home to many artists and illustrators. What we didn't know was that "between 1925 and 1989, 16 New Yorker artists living in and around Westport produced a remarkable 761 covers for the magazine, including 44 inspired by Westport scenes."

Here are three additional covers from the exhibit with special meaning given our childhood home off Green's Farms Road and years at the Green's Farms Congregational Church. Thanks for the memories.

Arthur Getz ~ May 21, 1960 ~ Connecticut Turnpike

Edna Eicke ~ June 6, 1957 ~ Green's Farms Congregational Church

Rea Irvin ~ Eustace Tilley ~ February 20, 1954