Charles Martin's art defines a lifetime of humor and subtle irony that contributed to years of pleasure by the readers of The New Yorker magazine. Martin shared his love for New York and the Maine environs by bringing quiet moments of contemplation to millions who found his familiarity with life's vagaries endearing. From his first publication of a New Yorker cover on August 6, 1938 throughout his five-decade career, his clarity of vision for gentle observations of the human condition told a story of the life in the big city and the small island of Monhegan, Maine. The city views struck a note of the classical, large American city with a personality formed by its resident and visitors; the Maine subjects took us to the typical rural experience where vacations and quiet living were shared. Martin’s years with The New Yorker entailed a weekly ritual of presenting his cartoons and cover paintings to the art department to be acknowledge by the editor with acceptance or with questions. One hundred eighty-seven covers were published through 1987 when his last publication was produced for the sophisticated audience that moved him to visual conversation through his medium. The original watercolors and gouaches began as paintings that over the years have entered collections of families who adored his art. It is most important, however, for his work to be seen in the museum setting since acknowledgement of the artist’s skill places him in a role equivalent to his artist friends who were raising hackles and breaking records in the museums from the 1950s forward. Close to artists in the Abstract Expressionist movement—Wilhem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Ashile Gorky—among many others, Marin poured his artistic efforts more into a communicative art form rather than avant-garde art. His process was immediate, personal, non-confrontational, and, perhaps most important, regular in his opportunities to have his work seen. Raising the standards of the public’s awareness of the magazine’s artwork, that is, his cover work rather than his small cartoons, Martin gave to the tradition a name (his) and a face (ours) to his art and to his audience. Cartoon art has played a role in publication since mid-19th century in such artists as Honore Daumier with his regular publications in Charvari, a weekly journal of sophistication and culture. Not dissimilar in its manifestation of humor with words that conjured up a chuckle from the reader, Daumier’s art observed the human condition, as did Charles Martin’s. Without a political sting but with an observant tingle, the regular publication of cartoons appeared in the press to engage the reader into empathy with the intention of the journal and its message. By Martin’s generation in American in the 1930s, rich drawing and hyper detail to evince a smile was out of fashion and the succinct linear style of the “modern” cartoonist allocated milliseconds of attention to multi-memories of empathy with the characters. Martin’s characters had no identifiers except finding “us” in their stories; stories in some instances required visual puns without verbal explanations. The New Yorker “spots” that first attracted Martin’s editor in 1934 evolved into illustrations of humorous moments of life. Drawn in rough form for their presentation for approval, the cartoons were crisply finished by the artist for publication. Text, if it were required, was typeset in the style of the magazine rather than in the artist’s hand. Signing his name as “Martin,” the artist soon became simple C.E.M, initials that identified subtleties in a flavor that promoted his following. Martin began a regular working relationship with covers and cartoons, the former finished paintings; the latter black ink drawings on white paper. He received commissions from Life Magazine, Time, and several other notable publications, but it was The New Yorker that sustained him for fifty years. Such subjects appear as the front of the Metropolitan Museum, that is only recognizable by a careful scrutiny of stone walls and park benches, to those whose lives include regular visits to the temple of culture. Around 1960 Martin and his wife, Florence, with their son Jared, discovered Monhegan Island, Maine, and purchased a cottage that captured their interest for three to four months each summer. As a result he introduced new subjects into his covers, the rural Maine scenes and idiosyncrasies of the summer cottage life. People with children at recreational events related to Island living, the images describe an Americana that appeals to vacationers and nature enthusiasts. Amusing scenes charmed the New Yorker readers: artists with their easels surrounding a seagull posing as a model by the harbor as well as quiet solitude with boats tucked away for the evening or filled with tomato plants in the off season. Balancing an active career as a productive illustrator and cartoonist, Martin produced an extraordinary oeuvre in the medium or watercolor, which included an unusual series of paintings he titled: Follies of War. During World War II he had made illustrated leaflets that were dropped by air on Nazi Germany as propaganda pieces. Later, Martin declared in the Follies that the concept of war was simply foolish. Each of the more than twenty large watercolors included quotations from the history of art mingled with medieval war-faring figures of knights who, like Don Quixote, found themselves jousting with flowers and other elusive enemies. These paintings smack of Surrealism’s imaginary world in which the subconscious state of culture is “ravaged” by a feckless military. Throughout Charles Martin’s career as an artist, an energetic force emerges in him that expresses an uncompromising realism versus an imaginary world that portrays life in a dream-like fantasy allowing his fancy to guide his brush. With the entire range of Martin’s various subjects and intentions to develop artistic explorations, the artist adheres to his personal avant-garde in the medium which provides him most assurance: the illustrations of his mind. The Lore Degenstein Gallery displayed the delights of Charles Martin's lifetime efforts including his gently humorous cover designs, his subtly amusing cartoons, watercolors from his production of children's books, his imaginary Follies of War, paintings of nature in the seafaring island of Monhegan, and the varieties of categories that make his imagery create his life. With our most profound appreciation to his family: his widow, his son, his grandson, and his friends, we are able to exhibit more than one hundred paintings and illustrations that define this fertile career. As support for the gallery programs, the Charles B. Degenstein and the Florence and Saul Putterman endowments have generously brought this artistic experience to Susquehanna University.   Dr. Valerie Livingston Met Benches, Charles E. Martin, Watercolor on paper, 1983, 14 x 10.5"