Who's On First?
Artist
Al Hirschfeld
United States, 1903 - 2003
Date1973
Dimensions45 x 30 in. (114.3 x 76.2 cm)
ClassificationsPoster
Credit LineGift of Diane Lippert
Object numberPH.6679
DescriptionAl Hirschfeld, an American caricaturist best known for his witty and distinctive images of show-business figures in the New York Times, provided the cover art for the books in this series by Richard J. Anobile, all of which incorporated film stills with snippets of dialogue from the actors’ films. This poster promotes Who’s On First?, dedicated to the films of the comedy duo Abbott and Costello and incorporating both Hirschfeld’s caricatures of the actors, as in the other posters for the series, and a speech bubble containing the words of a version of their famous sketch of the same name. The two comedians polished an existing version of this skit, in which they confuse each other with the names of the players of an imaginary baseball team, after they formally teamed up as a professional act in 1936. It was received with great acclaim in a touring vaudeville review called Hollywood Bandwagon in 1937 and can be seen in their 1945 film The Naughty Nineties.On View
Not on view
1960
