The School Of Visual Arts (SVA) is planning on honoring beloved cartoonist Roz Chast, who has been drawing neurotically funny cartoons for The New Yorker (and other publications) since 1978. In addition to an exhibition of her work later this year, she'll also receive the 30th annual Masters Series Award.
"The Masters Series: Roz Chast" will be a comprehensive retrospective of her long career, and will include never-before-seen cartooning and illustration work, selections from her more than 20 books, a new hand-drawn mural, notebooks Chast kept in high school, embroideries, hooked rugs and hand-dyed pysanky (aka Ukrainian-style Easter eggs).
"I'm thrilled to infinite bits about the exhibit," Chast told Gothamist. "SVA is such an important part of NYC. Maybe I'm biased because one of my kids went there and had such a good experience. I'm greatly honored to be part of The Masters Series."
Chast's carefully-sketched, frenetic style perfectly conveys the heightened drama that often erupts from the complications of everyday life, from hailing a cab to dealing with your mother-in-law. She has written several books, including last year's hilarious ode to her hometown, Going Into Town: A Love Letter to New York. She also contributed to our Sketchy Interviews series earlier this year.
Past winners of the award include Michael Bierut, Christoph Niemann, Milton Glaser, Paula Scher and Ivan Chermayeff. Chast added that the pieces for the exhibit are still being chosen, but you can see some selections of her work up above; she added that she is creating some additional unique pieces just for this show.
The exhibition will be on view from November 17th through December 15th, 2018 at the SVA Chelsea Gallery (601 West 26th Street, 15th floor). Admission is free and open to the public. There will also be an artist talk on November 28th from 7-9 p.m. at the SVA Theatre, (333 West 23rd Street), and an opening reception will be held at the gallery on November 29th, from 6-8 p.m. Check out more details here.
