Mary Petty

Mary Petty
A detail from Mary Petty's September 24, 1955 cover of The New Yorker depicting Mrs. Peabody's maid Fay. The two were the primary characters in Petty's popular 40-cover Peabody Family series which ran for 35 years.
Born	April 29, 1899(1899-04-29) New York City
Died	6 March 1976(1976-03-06) (aged 76)
Nationality	American
Field	Illustrator

Mary Petty (April 29, 1899 - March 6, 1976) was an illustrator of books and magazines best remembered for a series of covers done for The New Yorker featuring her invented Peabody family.

In 1922, Petty graduated from the Horace Mann School in New York City, and five years later she and cartoonist Alan Dunn were married. Petty first sold work to The New Yorker in 1927 under the encouragement of her husband, who had already sold cartoons to the magazine. Her style was characterized by her "gentle satirization of New York City's Victorian era society."^[1]

Petty was a naturally reticent person, and while her work began appearing in the lauded new magazine, Petty herself did not come to The New Yorker offices for some time and thus "for a long time nothing at all was known about her—except that she regularly submitted a new and distinctive kind of drawing."^[2] Even after becoming a part of the office scene, few knew her well. James Thurber said all he knew of her background was that she "was born in a brownstone house on West End Avenue. Her father was a professor. She did not have a particularly happy childhood. That's all, brother."^[3]

Petty rarely took ideas from outside sources (only twice, according to Thurber^[4]).

References

1. ^ [1] Artist bio by Domenic J. Iacono for the Mary Petty Exhibit at Syracuse University
2. ^ "Mary Petty and Her Drawings" by James Thurber. Originally appeared in This Petty Place by Mary Petty (Knopf) and later republished in the Thurber collection Credos and Curios (Harper & Row).
3. ^ "Mary Petty and Her Drawings"
4. ^ "Mary Petty and Her Drawings"

External links

• Alan Dunn and Mary Petty Papers 1907-1972 at Syracuse University (primary source material)

Persondata
Name	Petty, Mary
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	April 29, 1899
Place of birth	New York City
Date of death	March 6, 1976
Place of death