Henry Read Martin ’48

Hank was a prolific and renowned cartoonist for The New Yorker magazine from 1950 until his retirement in 1995, as well as for many other magazines and other publications. Most of the cartoons, signed H. Martin, and spots (the New Yorker’s term for small drawings inside a story) were created in his career-long office, a one-room building near Nassau Street. 

Hank was born July 15, 1925, in Louisville, Ky., and came to Princeton to earn a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in art history. After two years at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, he returned permanently to Princeton, “able to live and work where I chose, the happy result of being a freelance cartoonist.” He and Edith were married in the First Presbyterian (now Nassau Presbyterian) Church on Nassau Street.  

Hank died June 30, 2020, two weeks before his 95th birthday. Edith died in 2010. Hank is survived by his and Edie’s daughters, Ann Martin and Jane Martin McGrath; their son-in-law Douglas McGrath ’80; their grandson Henry McGrath ’20; his sister Adele Vinsel; and eight nieces and nephews.