| 1 | Name: | Ms. Rosalind Chast | |
| Institution: | The New Yorker | ||
| Year Elected: | 2010 | ||
| Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | ||
| Subdivision: | 501. Creative Artists | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1954 | ||
Rosalind (Roz) Chast received a BFA at the Rhode Island School of Design. In 1998 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Pratt Institute and in 2004 she was given the Museum of Cartoon and Comic Art Festival Award. She is the author and illustrator of Last Resorts, 1979; Unscientific Americans, 1982; Parallel Universes, 1984; Mondo Boxo, 1987; The Four Elements, 1988; Proof of Life on Earth, 1992; The Joy of Being Single, 1992; Childproof, 1997; Rationalizations To Live By, 2002; Weird and Wonderful Words, 2004; The Party, After You Left, 2004; Theories of Everything: Selected, Collected, and Health-Inspected Cartoons 1978-2006, 2006; with Steve Martin, The Alphabet from A to Y With Bonus Letter Z!, 2007; What I Hate: From A to Z, 2011; and Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? 2014 (which won the National Book Award in Autobiography). She was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2010. Ms. Chast is one of the most gifted cartoonists of her generation. Since 1979 she has been on the staff of The New Yorker, where she has now published more than a thousand cartoons. Her first of many covers for The New Yorker appeared in 1986. Her work also appears in other publications, including Scientific American and Harvard Business Review. If her cartoons have a common denominator it must be that they are very clever and quietly and irresistibly funny. She draws little figures, sometimes inquisitive, sometimes abashed, and most often bewildered. Chast's subjects are usually domestic or family oriented. Her art is deceptively simple; many surprises await the reader who parses carefully the backgrounds against which her figures appear. Her comics reflect a "conspiracy of inanimate objects," an expression she credits to her mother. Her most recent book, Theories of Everything: Selected, Collected, and Health-Inspected Cartoons 1978-2006, offers a splendid review of Chast's work; amusement, with moments of breaking into uncontrollable laughter, is guaranteed. | |||