Our country’s leading literary authorities are getting older. Are we at peace with that? Maybe it’s too early, but there’s a general agreement that as Lewis Lapham, founding editor of Lapham’s Quarterly, and Robert Silvers, founding editor of The New York Review of Books, grow older, the torch is being passed to younger editors, like the co-editors of n+1 and Dave Eggers and The Believer. The same might be said of their illustrators, specifically, that Charles Burns’s portraits for The Believer may some day be placed on equal standing with the dearly admired illustrations by David Levine for The New York Review. Some of our favorites, after the jump, are now on display at the Adam Baumgold Gallery in New York, alongside the Before & After drawings from Burns’s graphic novel Black Hole.
Charles Burns. Orhan Pamuk, 2006. Image courtesy Adam Baumgold Fine Art.
Charles Burns. Jorge Luis Borges, 2007. Image courtesy Adam Baumgold Fine Art.
Charles Burns. Steve Martin, 2005. Image courtesy Adam Baumgold Fine Art.
Charles Burns. Paul Auster, 2005. Image courtesy Adam Baumgold Fine Art.
Charles Burns. David Foster Wallace, 2003. Image courtesy Adam Baumgold Fine Art.
Charles Burns. Zadie Smith, 2005. Image courtesy Adam Baumgold Fine Art.
Charles Burns. Tina Fey, 2003. Image courtesy Adam Baumgold Fine Art.
Charles Burns. David Sedaris, 2005. Image courtesy Adam Baumgold Fine Art.
Charles Burns. Tobias Wolff, 2005. Image courtesy Adam Baumgold Fine Art.
Charles Burns. David Mamet, 2005. Image courtesy Adam Baumgold Fine Art.