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Gardner Rea

A native of Ironton, Ohio, Rea was born into an artistic family and planned to become a painter. When he was fifteen years old, he sold a gag cartoon to Life magazine.^[1]

He attended East High SchoolinColumbus, Ohio and Ohio State University, where he met and befriended James Thurber.^[1] Rea played tennis in college and was the editor of the humor magazine, the Sundial,^[1] which he had helped to found.^[3]

From 1914, he worked as a freelance writer and artist in Manhattan, and contributed to Life and Judge magazines.^[1] During World War I, he served in the Chemical Warfare Service.^[1]

He began contributing not only drawings and covers but also gags to The New Yorker after it was founded in 1925.^[1] Artists such as Charles Addams and Helen Hokinson drew cartoons based on gags written by Rea.^[1]

Gardner Rea in the mid 1930s was a regular contributor to the Communist Party's literary magazine "New Masses," with work appearing in nearly every weekly issues in the years 1936 and 1937.^[4]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Gardner Rea cartoons at the New Yorker's Cartoon Bank
• Comrades in Art:

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