Books: Artist’s Victims

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!—Peggy Bacon—McBride ($3). Though Peggy Bacon is little known to the U. S. at large, Manhattan intelligentsiacs have for years oh-ed and ahed in front of her malicious black-&-white portraits. Like all good caricaturists, her bite is worse than her bark. This collection of 39 caricatures of prominent U. S. figures shows Artist Bacon at her best, her victims at their worst. A literate craftswoman (she versifies with skill), Artist Bacon supplements her sketches with verbal notes, sometimes as acidly to the point as the finished drawing. Some of them:

General Hugh Johnson: “Head gives impression of being all face. Brutal, coarse, ruthless mug of toadlike consistency. Fleshy features of crude clay. Deep ruts ploughed down cheeks as if by cartwheels through heavy mud. Eyes smothered in stout scallops of pulp. Body prehistoric mound, clothing tugged on in folds like armor-clad rhinoceros. Looks neolithic, neckless, materialistic with powerful drive and stubborn pugnacity. Atavistic. Unusually intelligent primate. Nose.like a darning gourd. Expression like an old procuress.”

Sinclair Lewis: “Pinkish, redhead, hair smooth and flattened in front, neglected, dishevelled and bunched in brief strands behind. Irritable brow. Long flat plane from temple to collar. Flesh like canned tomatoes with the seeds in it, changing abruptly to cream-colored forehead. Pale blue clever bulgy eyes, glaring dizzily at something in offing, possibly anthill. Sandy eyelashes, invisible eyebrows, lips gathered on a drawstring with puzzled purse like old lady’s reticule. Nose of a grocer adding up slip. Freckled hands with an elegant shape, sensitively caressing cigarette. Face wiggles formlessly into collar, long seamy neck to rear. Gold rimmed spectacles, mal-fitting collar, hunched shoulders. Looks overheated, corrugated, modest and oafish. A country-store type.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt: “Large, massive, oblong skull, flesh pretty well messed up with scars, folds and wrinkles but amazingly firm in outline. Head like a big trunk, battered by travel and covered with labels, mostly indecipherable. Cosmopolitan, intact but hard-used. Color warm neutral with dingy hair, thick and ill-groomed at rear. Heavy jowl, thrust out and up like an iguana. Mouth curved judicially, lower lip protrudes. Eyes slanting with complicated puckers beneath, giving air of speculation rather than dissipation. Form lumbering, sits carelessly in comfort with wrinkled shoulders. Bright, direct look, the frank, clear gaze of craft. Clever as hell but so innocent. Tactful, charming, ingratiating. Urbane grin, fine stage presence. A grand old actor.”

George Gershwin: “Long head, shoe-box type. Profile extremely Hittite. Sarsaparilla coloring and a musical haircomb, blown out a bit over ears. Flat cheeks, ironed out, sweeping aggressively into bulging lip and chin. Unanalytical eyes beneath dramatic brows. Smugly aggressive mouth, insensitive, without dubiety. Good-humored, self-confident, able and limited.”

Opposite her own unflattering self-portrait, Caricaturist Bacon writes: “Pinhead, parsimoniously covered with thin dark hair, on a short, dumpy body. Small features, prominent nose, chipmunk teeth and no chin, conveying the sharp, weak look of a little rodent. Absent-minded eyes with a half-glimmer of observation. Prim, critical mouth and faint coloring. Personality lifeless, retiring, snippy, quietly egotistical. Lacks vigor and sparkle.”