While the mercury rises outside, create a haven inside! Through Friday, July 2, at 11:59 p.m. EST, save 20% on all prints at The New Yorker Store when you enter EASY20 at checkout. Save on prints of your favorite New Yorker cartoons and covers, and bring a breath of fresh air to your walls this summer. Start shopping now!

They’re finally here: The 2011 New Yorker Desk Diary is now available for purchase at the New Yorker Store. Organize your day with a calendar full of hilarious New Yorker cartoons. Book a business dinner in no time flat with the Desk Diary’s New York City restaurant list, or play concierge for your out-of-state colleague using the hotel directory.

Planning shouldn’t feel so much like work, and with this sleek and smart desktop companion, it doesn’t have to. Whether you’re new to the Desk Diary or have carried one for years, you’ll get a smile out of every page you turn.

The 2011 New Yorker Desk Diary is available in six different colors, including this year’s newest additions: Peacock Green, Forest Green, and White Gold. Order yours today!

"No problem, B.J. I can talk and baste at the same time."

Welcome back summer the right way with the New Yorker Store‘s annual Memorial Day sale! Now through 11:59 p.m. EST on Monday, May 31, save 20% on any purchase (excluding licensing, original and commissioned art, and executive gifts) at the New Yorker Store when you enter REMEMBER at checkout. Enjoy the sun, and the savings!

By George Booth for the March 12, 1979 New Yorker cover.

Longtime New Yorker cartoonist George Booth will receive this year’s Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award at the National Cartoonists Society’s 64th Annual Reuben Awards. This year’s ceremony, dubbed “Reubens on the Hudson,” will be held in Jersey City overlooking the Hudson River on May 29. Booth, 83, was previously awarded the Society’s Gag Cartoon Award in 1993.

Booth’s famously disgruntled cats and bull terriers, domestic squabbles, and little old ladies have graced the pages of The New Yorker for more than 40 years. In 1999, The Essential George Booth, a compendium of Booth’s cartoons edited by former cartoon editor Lee Lorenz, was released.

For more information on his life and works, read an interview with George Booth on the Cartoon Bank blog, and see our previous story about Booth’s longest caption competition with Henry Martin.

Over the coming months, the Westport Arts Center (WAC) in Westport, Connecticut will host a series of exhibitions examining the art of storytelling through drawing. “Divine Comedy,” a showcase of works by the indomitable Roz Chast and the inscrutable R. Crumb – both masters of putting to paper our most harrowing and humorous inner anxieties – is the first exhibit in the series and will be up at the WAC from this Thursday, April 1, to May 30, 2010. Visit the WAC for the opening reception on Thursday from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

A collection of eggs featuring colorful Chast cartoons

The exhibit is curated by Helen Klisser During, the WAC’s new visual arts director. During’s curator’s statement explains why she chose these two artists to start off the series: “What unites R. Crumb and Roz Chast is the poetic use of the drawn line and language to mirror the ironies of the human condition. Both poignant and brutally honest, Crumb and Chast are fearless provocateurs that take us on a journey through the complex and ever-changing comedy of life at the beginning of the 21st century.”

In conjunction with the show, Roz Chast will be the featured speaker at this year’s Malloy Lecture in the Arts, co-presented by the WAC and the Westport Public Library, at Bedford Middle School on Monday, April 12 at 7:30 p.m.

On Monday, March 26, as part of the “Draw On!” series of the Aldrich Center for Contemporary Art, Roz created a site-specific mural at the WAC and invited local kids to contribute their own drawings. Below are a few photos capturing the event; you can also see a video of Roz taking their questions here.

All images in this post are presented courtesy of the Westport Arts Center.

See more Roz Chast drawings at the New Yorker Store

Roz at the chalkboard

Future cartoonists honing their craft

Roz reviews a submission from a workshop participant

Two participants showing their stuff

Roz with the curator of “Divine Comedy,” Helen Klisser During

After a recent cleaning of the New Yorker area of the Archive, we unearthed some fantastic black and white photographs of some of The New Yorker’s finest.

All of these photographs are by Alen MacWeeney, whose lengthy career has included work for The New Yorker, Vogue, The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, and many others. At the moment, we don’t have any information about where these photos were published (if at all), or when they were taken.

George Price, perched on the edge of an armchair

"Play 'Misty' for me."

Charles Saxon, peeking out from behind a tree trunk, sporting a cap with horns

A man sips from a teacup as he looks out from his apartment on a snowy evening

Ed Fisher standing against the wall, illuminated by two lamps

Ed Fisher reflected in a small mirror, with a drawing of him lying in the foreground

"Come on, honey. We may no longer be 'nouveau,' but at least we're still 'riche.'"

Sam Gross at a drawing table, wearing one pair of glasses with another on top of his head

Gahan Wilson with a napkin tucked into his collar, uncomfortably regarding the scottie on a tray in his lap

"But seriously, folks..."

Jack Ziegler, behind a curtained window, turning toward the camera with steepled hands

"Damn it, honey, I hate it when you give me that fish-eye look."

Illustrator Stanley Wadsworth Reynolds, circa 1915-1920

Unsigned cover submitted to The New Yorker

This month, we’re highlighting works in our original art collection by illustrator Stanley Wadsworth Reynolds, pictured above.

At a young age, Reynolds lost his right arm in a horse-drawn trolley incident in downtown Detroit. He eventually came to New York City, where he worked as a successful freelance artist in the 1920s.

Detail of cover submitted to House & Garden

Above and below are some of Reynolds’ unpublished cover and illustration submissions to The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, House & Garden, and CHARM magazines. To our knowledge, he published 12 New Yorker covers and three Vanity Fair covers during the span of his short career. Reynolds passed away from pulmonary thrombosis at the young age of 35.

Detail of unsigned cover or inside illustration submitted to The New Yorker or Vanity Fair

Detail of submission to Vanity Fair

These original works vary in size, medium, and price. To learn more, e-mail originalart@newyorkerstore.com.

By Anatol Kovarsky

Note: Click on each image to get an enlarged view, begin navigating through the entire image gallery, and find out whether the original piece of artwork is available for sale. Learn more about buying original New Yorker art at www.newyorkerstore.com.

As Valentine’s Day approaches, I thought I’d share with our readers a real-life love story between a New Yorker artist and his wife, one that demonstrates that fairy-tale romances do still happen.

I had the recent pleasure of enjoying a three and a half hour lunch with my favorite nonagenarian, New Yorker cover artist Anatol Kovarsky, and his beautiful wife, the talented actress Lucille Patton. We dined with a nice couple who is adding an original 1966 Kovarsky New Yorker cover to their collection.

I brought color printouts of Anatol’s past New Yorker covers (39 total), and we discussed several in detail. He was quite talkative, and loved telling stories about his former art editors and the inspiration for many of his covers.

By Anatol Kovarsky

By Anatol Kovarsky

Born in Russia in the early half of the last century, Anatol discussed what it was like growing up in the former Soviet Union. Even today, in his 90s, he is intrigued by current affairs, linguistics, history, and cultural science – and how he can incorporate these subjects into his projects.

My favorite part of the lunch was when Lucille told me how she and Anatol met, at a fabulous party thrown by two young actresses in Gramercy Park in the early 1950s. She attended with her roommate at the time, a former lounge singer. “The girls who threw the party went all out,” Lucille said. “There were waiters with white gloves, trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres. The place was packed to the gills!”
She was immediately drawn to Anatol, the gentleman with an interesting accent, so she did not hesitate to introduce herself and inform him of her latest play.

Unbeknownst to Lucille, Anatol attended the performance and waited for her in the pouring rain in the alleyway behind the theater. She almost missed him, but saw him out of the corner of her eye as she lifted the brim of her hat. From there, according to Lucille, they “closed down two nearby bars and kissed in the cab all the way home.” Fifty-six years later, they are still happily married and living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Here’s to finding your own valentine in a dark alleyway, or wherever the search for romance takes you!

While not created as a response to the destruction of the recent earthquake in Haiti, the 2007 painting “The Resurrection of the Dead,” particularly in the ghostly guards occupying the doorway (called guede, in Haitian myth) and the surrounding wall inlaid with pairs of gazing eyes, transmits to the viewer an appropriate sense of somber regard for the passing of souls.

“The Resurrection of the Dead”, by Haitian painter Frantz Zephirin, was featured on the January 25, 2010 cover of The New Yorker. The magazine will donate all profits from print sales of this cover to Partners in Health, which provides health care and other services in Haiti and has taken a leading role in earthquake relief efforts.

Buy “The Resurrection of the Dead” at the New Yorker Store

The New Yorker on Frantz Zephirin and his work