Life, 1920-07-22 · page 4 of 40
Life — July 22, 1920 — page 4: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The top cartoon, "Senator Sounder, by Gluyas Williams," depicts a portly senator at a dinner table. In the left panel, he sits calmly eating; in the right, he's dramatically gesticulating with arms raised. The joke appears to be about senators who are verbose or theatrical speakers—"sounders" who make loud pronouncements, presumably about trivial matters like the soup course. Williams's satire mocks politicians' tendency toward grandiose speechmaking over substance. The page also features a biographical profile of contributor **Gluyas Williams**, a commercial artist and cartoonist who studied at Harvard. Williams describes his artistic process and dedication to drawing. Below is a subscription offer for LIFE magazine at $1.20 (Canadian rates listed). The page is primarily promotional/editorial rather than news-driven satire.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Mr. Williams Robert Louis Stevenson once said that the best of literature was knowing what This is the test of almost every- Mr. Williams not humor and to omit thing, including art only has a combination of satire (watch for his drawings in Lier, of which the two reproductions on this page are an example), but he has the line under perfect control. He writes of himself: 1 was born in San Francisco in 1888, lived abroad until I was eleven or twelve, and eventually drifted to Harvard to study law. At school I had spent most of my time in Latin class decorating my “ Cx with my own conception of life in Rome and of Cesar and his friends; and by the time I got to college I was determined to draw for the Lampoon. I finally got on it, and from then on my interest in law waned and my interest in becoming an artist in- Special Offer Enclosed find One Foreign $1.40) Dollar Govyas WILLIAMS. creased. After graduation I borrowed enough money to take me to Paris for a year, where I studied at Colarossi's. Re- turning in the spring of rott, I sold my first drawing—it was to Lire—and, im mensely cheered up, set to work in earnest. However. funds dwindled, a comic strip in (Canadian $1.20, Send Lire for twelve issues to a newspaper flivvered, and I at lds: decided and had better e it up. I went to the Vouth’s Com that J was a bum artist as reader, and later became one of ors; but meanwhile I had found that you can't give up drawing so easily. I went at it again, nights and $ working practically evening and holiday. But at last I have reached the place where I can devote 1 For the first time in ten years I shall be able to go to I early. plugged away, every self entirely to drawing. About methods of work, I hardly know what to say. I'm not temperamental, and haven't any special peculiarities. I suppose I work like everyone else. 1 and I do practically the entire drawing in pencil. not quick ; The inking is almost entirely me. chanical; I follow the penciled line a exactly. I'm a great lover of the s drawing, and as such I of course worship at the shrine of Caran d'Ache. T ought to have said before that a good deal of my inclination to draw came from watching my sister, Kate Carew, at work. The Old Clothes Number of LIFE Next Week Open only to new subscribers; no subscriptions renewed at this rate, LIFE, 17 West 31st Street, New York One Year, $5.00. (Caradian, $5.80; Foreign, $6.60.) comicbooks.