Gardner Rea
Gardner Rea (1894 – December 29, 1966) was an American cartoonist, and one of the original contributing artists to The New Yorker. His captioned and uncaptioned gags were pithy and true.” A native of Ironton, Ohio, Rea was born into an artistic family and planned to become a painter. When he was fifteen years old, he sold a gag cartoon to Life magazine.
Gardner Rea
- Born
- 1894
- Died
- 1966
- Occupation
- cartoonist
- Education
- East High School
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Gardner Rea (1894 – December 29, 1966) was an American cartoonist, and one of the original contributing artists to The New Yorker. His captioned and uncaptioned gags were pithy and true.” A native of Ironton, Ohio, Rea was born into an artistic family and planned to become a painter. When he was fifteen years old, he sold a gag cartoon to Life magazine.
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wikidata · Q5522611 · wikipedia · Gardner Rea
In this article
Identity
Identity
He attended East High School in Columbus, Ohio and Ohio State University, where he met and befriended James Thurber. Rea played tennis in college and was the editor of the humor magazine, the Sundial, which he had helped to found. From 1914, he worked as a freelance writer and artist in Manhattan, and contributed to Life and Judge magazines. During World War I, he served in the Chemical Warfare Service. He began contributing not only drawings and covers but also gags to The New Yorker after it was founded in 1925. Artists such as Charles Addams and Helen Hokinson drew cartoons based on gags written by Rea. Rea in the mid 1930s was a regular contributor to the Communist Party's literary magazine "New Masses," with work appearing in nearly every weekly issues in the years 1936 and 1937.
Gardner Rea is recorded as cartoonist.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1894
Gardner Rea born.
1966
Gardner Rea died.
Catalogued output
Catalogued works
Gardner Rea's sideshow
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- “Gardner Rea”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q5522611: Gardner Rea
General reference · Wikidata
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Brookhaven/South Haven.org. Gardner Rea Obituary. December 29, 1966.
- 2.Heller, Steven. Rah Rah Rah for Gardner Rea. Print magazine. September 24, 2009.
- 3.Lee, Judith Yaross. Defining New Yorker humor: Studies in popular culture. University Press of Mississippi. 377n. 2000. 9781578061983.
- 4.New Masses 1926-1948 archive]. Early American Marxism. January 26, 2020.
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General reference
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 16 August 2026.
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