1938 Cartoon Map of New York City
By: Henry Emil Salloch
Date: 1938 (published) New York
Dimensions: 26 x 12.25 in (66 x 31 cm)
This is a dynamic pictorial map illustrated by the German Jewish artist Henry Emil Salloch. Rendered about a year after Salloch immigrated to the United States, his Cartoon Map of New York City is a fine showcase of the frenetic energy of modern living and a fresh, almost touristic gaze of someone in a new place.
The majority of Salloch’s map is taken up by the island of Manhattan, with small portions of the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn also shown. Illustrated in black and green ink, Salloch includes major thoroughfares like Lexington Avenue and Broadway, as well as various bridges and the Holland Tunnel. The map includes institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Columbia University, and the New York Public Library; neighborhoods like Harlem and Greenwich Village; and memorials like Ulysses S. Grant’s tomb and the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. The map includes racist caricatures to mark Chinatown, the ‘Jewish Ghetto,’ and Harlem. Two minor New York celebrities are also included: Peter the Great the hippopotamus and Alice the elephant, who both lived at the Bronx Zoo; Alice was reportedly the ‘most human connected elephant the zoo ever had.’
Henry Emil Salloch, born in 1908 in Berlin, studied at the Muthesiushochschule in Kiel, Germany, and later taught art in Berlin. He refused to join the National Socialist Party and defied the Party’s demands when he refused to stop teaching art to Jewish students or use the Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter in his class. His ideas put him in enough danger that he had to flee to Cuba; he then immigrated to the United States in 1937. Salloch later became an American citizen on June 5, 1945.
With a distinct, playful style; simple yet bold use of color; and a beautiful attention to detail, Salloch’s Cartoon Map of New York City is a great example of a twentieth century pictorial map as well as a fascinating look at the city in the first half of the century.
Condition: This map is in A condition. A strong impression with bright coloring. Even toning throughout. Blank verso is reinforced with linen.
Inventory #12142
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