Barney Tobey

Barney Tobey (1906-1989) first started cartooning in Evander Childs High School in New York City where he drew a strip called “Ambitious Ambrose.” His skills earned him a scholarship at the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts, but he left after a year to pursue a career in the art department of a prominent advertising firm. While working in advertising, Tobey began submitting cartoon to The New Yorker, Collier’s, This Week, and The Saturday Evening Post.  The New Yorker published his first cartoon in 1929.  Six years later, he gave up advertising to pursue cartooning on a freelance basis, and began a relationship with the New Yorker that would extend more than five decades. Over that period, The New Yorker published more than 1,200 of Tobey’s cartoons and 4 of his covers.