Relating the Story of His Life

A well-appointed drawing room frames four figures in Gibson's signature pen-and-ink line. A young man occupies a chair at center, one leg crossed, evidently holding forth to a seated woman in a patterned dress who leans back on a chaise with the studied patience of someone enduring a monologue she has heard before. A second woman stands at left holding what appears to be a book or letter, half-attendant, half-removed. A third stands behind the chaise, hand raised to her chin in skeptical appraisal. The joke is distributed across all three women's expressions: polite tolerance, private doubt, quiet amusement. By 1927 Gibson was editing Life himself; the target here is male self-mythology and the social theatre women perform around it.