Ed Wynn and Richard B. Harrison 1930

Ralph Barton made this drawing, Ed Wynn and Richard B. Harrison, with what looks like ink on paper. I love the simplicity of it, just black and white. It reminds me that you don’t need a million colors to make something pop. The way Barton uses lines to create these caricatures is so interesting. Like, look at the glasses on Ed Wynn, they're just perfect circles, but they totally work. And the shading, it’s almost like he’s sculpting with the ink, giving these guys real volume. I particularly love the way the bow tie is shaded. It is both really graphic and flat and at the same time quite rounded. It's like he knew exactly what details to exaggerate. It puts me in mind of other cartoonists like Al Hirschfeld, where it's all about capturing the essence of a person with as few lines as possible. It’s cool how art can be funny and smart at the same time, right?