One of the most incisive architectural critics of the 20th century, whose work was regularly published in RECORD, was a cartoonist. No joke. Alan Dunn (1900–74) was best known as a contributor to The New Yorker, an association that began in 1926, a year after the magazine was founded. His illustrative commentary for the fledgling publication often focused on the foibles of modern design and the general state of clients’ taste and on devil-may-care construction. In 1937, RECORD approached Dunn to submit a drawing for a more circumscribed readership of 12,000 architects and related professionals. (By then, The New Yorker had a circulation of 133,000.) As Dunn replied, “I am pleased that my libido towards architecture and construction has come to notice.”
Raised in Manhattan, Dunn had no architectural training. After attending Columbia University for a year, he studied painting at the National Academy of Design and the American Academy in Rome. Soon he was drawn to using his art for social commentary, as was his wife, Mary Petty, an illustrator who also presented her own distinctive cartoons in The New Yorker.
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