Billy Ireland Exhibit of Edward Koren’s work featured in New Yorker
This winter, the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum (BICLM) opened an exhibition of the work of Edward Koren (1934-2023), whose cartoons ran in The New Yorker for over fifty years. During that period, Koren drew over 1,100 panels for the magazine and became one of its most beloved contributors.
To mark the occasion of the exhibition’s opening, The New Yorker ran a photo-comic in its Nov. 19 online issue about selecting drawings for the BILCM show. Titled “A Visit to Planet Koren,” the piece includes pictures of many of the works in the Billy Ireland show (and prominently mentions The Ohio State University several times).
As the Billy Ireland website says: “Koren’s New Yorker work [was] always more about a sensibility than a punchline. Forests, living rooms, a windblown lake — everything he drew teems with life. His characters are gleefully foolish and bemused. They are often world-weary and cranky but not caustic; clueless perhaps, but rarely mean-spirited. Koren may have had his doubts about humanity in general but his genuine affection for people and the communities he wryly observed is evident in every drawing.”
The exhibition will run through May 4, 2025.
Edward Koren, "And just what gives you the right to say that?” published in The New Yorker February 25, 1980. Courtesy of the Koren family.
Installation view of "See Anyone You Know? The New Yorker Cartoons and Covers of Edward Koren." Courtesy of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, The Ohio State University. Photo by Cameron Sharp.
Installation view of "See Anyone You Know? The New Yorker Cartoons and Covers of Edward Koren." Courtesy of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, The Ohio State University. Photo by Cameron Sharp.
Installation view of "See Anyone You Know? The New Yorker Cartoons and Covers of Edward Koren." Courtesy of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, The Ohio State University. Photo by Cameron Sharp.
Installation view of "See Anyone You Know? The New Yorker Cartoons and Covers of Edward Koren." Courtesy of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, The Ohio State University. Photo by Cameron Sharp.
Installation view of "See Anyone You Know? The New Yorker Cartoons and Covers of Edward Koren." Courtesy of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, The Ohio State University. Photo by Cameron Sharp.
Installation view of "See Anyone You Know? The New Yorker Cartoons and Covers of Edward Koren." Courtesy of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, The Ohio State University. Photo by Cameron Sharp.