For five decades, Princeton alumni have owed Henry Martin ’48 their thanks for making them laugh. Now there’s another reason for gratitude: The longtime cartoonist has donated nearly 700 original drawings, along with some of his humor books, to the University Library.
Included in his gift are cartoons Martin drew for The New Yorker, Ladies’ Home Journal, The Saturday Evening Post, PAW, and many other magazines. The largest group — 570 drawings — appeared in the London comic magazine Punch. Also included is Martin’s first New Yorker cartoon, published Aug. 15, 1964.
Alumni may find special appeal in the cartoons that relate to Princeton. “The gentle, genial Martin draws mostly gentle people, many transparently upper class and Ivy-educated, musing on the absurdities of this or that,” PAW’s Mark F. Bernstein ’83 wrote in 2003. “Many of his beloved cartoons are set at Reunions, and of course a better theater of the absurd could hardly be found.”