Miguel Covarrubias: captures the celebrity culture: much of this versatile Mexican artist's early career in New York City was spent characterizing notables of the stage and screen during the 1920s and 30s with his lively and humorous illustrations.

• Author: Williams, Adriana

In an interview with Excelsior in 1971, Miguel Covarrubias said, "One must add to what one sees the flavor of the person's temperament and the beauty of his or her feelings, always reflecting what's there by nature." Although he exaggerated the appearance of his subjects for the sake of humor, many of them--the celebrities and entertainers especially--were eager for the artist to draw their likeness. Why? A Covarrubias caricature was a sign that one had achieved a certain level of fame.

Miguel Covarrubias is recognized as one of the most creative Mexican artists of his time. The enormous range of his accomplishments and the diverse body of work he left behind have shown without a doubt that he was a true Renaissance man.

Covarrubias was born in Mexico City in 1904. He began drawing at a very young age with his father, who had a serious hobby as a "Sunday painter." When he was fourteen, he left school never to return to any formal education again. His first job was drafting maps in the Mexican government's geographical office, but because the work was often dull and repetitive, he amused his coworkers by drawing caricatures of their supervisors.

In the evenings, Covarrubias spent his free time at the popular theater, a Mexican nationalistic form of commedia dell'arte, and at the tandas--short hour-long musical reviews that combined folk music, dance, and vignettes illustrating Mexican street life and character. Mexican comics and actors soon befriended him: Roberto Soto, Mario Moreno "Cantinflas," Delia Magana, Leopoldo Beristan, and Lupe Rivas Cacho, the queen of the tanda.

Later on in the evening, Covarrubias could be found sitting in a corner, sketching at any one of the cafes frequented by artists, intellectuals, and bohemians. One of the most popular cafes was Big Monkeys, owned by the brother of muralist and painter, Jose Clemente Orozco. Many cartoons by Covarrubias ended up pinned to the walls where they drew the attention of customers. Those who saw the drawings were attracted to the talented young artist, and since he was the youngest member of the group there, he eventually received the affectionate nickname "El Chamaco" (The Kid).

At seventeen, Covarrubias' capacity as a draftsman and his exceptional sense of irony and good humor were well recognized. Restless and inquisitive by nature, he dreamt of going to New York City, a metropolis that offered new and exciting adventures for a promising artist. When he expressed this desire to Mexican poet and critic Juan Jose Tablada, who was living in New York, Tablada was able to help make his dream come true.

Covarrubias arrived in New York in 1923. He was only nineteen years old and completely unknown, but much to his surprise, newspapers like the New York Herald, the New York Tribune, the New York Evening Post, the New York World, the New York Times, and the New York Evening Telegram, and magazines like Screenland, Shadowland, Modes and Manner, Delineator, and Theatre Magazine began to accept, commission, and publish his cartoons.

Around the time that Covarrubias came to the United States, the country was acquiring a new cultural capital--a dusty California crossroads called Hollywood. Each week, close to one hundred million people--nearly 80 percent of the country's total population--were going to the movies. It was a place where working men and women could escape their humdrum existence and laugh with the master clown of American slapstick comedies, Charlie Chaplin and his "little tramp"; swoon over Rudolf Valentino, the ultimate "Latin lover"; or gape at the undraped female flesh displayed by Mack Sennett's "bathing beauties."

Covarrubias found himself irresistibly drawn to the world of movies and began making caricatures of the silent screen actors. Many of these appeared in Screeland. First, Covarrubias focused his attention on the comedians: the winsome Charlie Chaplin and the dreamy-eyed...