Steve Brodner is an illustrator, caricaturist, journalist, author, educator, lecturer, and political commentator, is accepted in the fields of journalism and the graphic arts as a master of the editorial idiom.
After winning the 1974 Population Institute Cartoon Contest for his cartoon (see above) and getting his BFA at Cooper Union in 1976, Brodner became the editorial cartoonist for The Hudson Dispatch in Union City, New Jersey, beginning a freelance illustration career that would span over four decades. By 1977 art director Steven Heller of The New York Times Book Review began tapping him for illustration assignments.
In 1981 he became a regular contributor to Harper’s Magazine with the monthly feature, “Ars Politica”, a name given it by Lewis Lapham, Harper’s editor.
In the late 1980s, as media became more critical of the popular Ronald Reagan, more magazines and newspapers commissioned Brodner to contribute. These included The National Lampoon, Sports Illustrated, Playboy, and Spy.Brodner has covered twelve national political conventions through visual essays for Esquire, The Progressive, Harpers, the Village Voice and others.
In 1988, Esquire brought him in as an unofficial house artist doing portraits, caricature, art journalism, and a monthly full-page political cartoon “Adversaria”. Since then he has worked for most major publications in the US and Canada.
His article, “Plowed Under”, a series of portraits and interviews with Midwestern family farmers abandoned by Reagan Era policies, ran in The Progressive (designed by Patrick JB Flynn), a mecca for US political art at the time.Another illustrated-documentary followed called Shot From Guns. This 1989 series, appearing in Northeast Magazine, was about the Colt Firearms strike in Hartford, Connecticut and its toll on workers.
The first Bush administration led to and increase in opportunities in popular media from caricaturing the desperate, ineffectual president George H.W. Bush . . .
. . . to portraits of anti-Gulf War demonstrators.
His book “Davy Crockett” was animated and produced by Rabbit Ears Productions in 1992, narrated by Nicholas Cage.
As the Clinton Era drew near, Brodner was featured in more and more major political publications, from Mother Jones to the Village Voice. Tomorrow’s News Tonight was a free-wheeling weekly cartoon, syndicated in alternative weeklies across the country.
Brodner covered Ollie North’s Virginia Senate Campaign for The New Yorker in 1996, the first stop of which was a gun shop. At the New Yorker he contributed cartoons, portraits, journalism, satire of many kinds.
Steve Brodner had boots on the ground for reportage, including Pat Buchanan’s run, Bob Dole’s, Phil Gramm’s, Ross Perot’s campaigns. And Newt Gingrich’s rise to Speaker of the House.In the late 90s, Brodner did regular movie caricatures to go along with Peter Travers’ Rolling Stone film reviews.
One portrait of Madonna as Evita inspired Warren Beatty to commission him for the poster for Beatty’s political satire Bulworth.
In 1996 Brodner was a commentator in PBS’s Frontline documentary about the presidential election, “The Choice”, in which he commented and drew on camera.
Many projects followed, including climbing Mt. Fuji for Outside Magazine in 1997 and pieces focused on the epidemic of gun violence in the U.S. around this time, continuing into the 2000s for The Village Voice, The Nation, and Philadelphia Magazine.
His eight-page profile of George W. Bush appeared in the October ’98 issue of Esquire. Traveling for 10 days with the future candidate, Steve saw and reported on the attitude and political circle that would shape American history in the 00’s.
At the New Yorker he illustrated his own pieces as well as those of contributing writers included Andy Borowitz, John Lee Anderson, Joe Klein, David Remnick and many more. His 1999 cover was an early comment on the 2000 presidential race between Al Gore and George W. Bush.
After the September 11th attacks, Steve Brodner made an independent film on the missing from the photos he took wandering the city and attending memorials. “September, 2001” was shown in conjunction with the Sundance Film Festival, 2002.
In the early 2000s, as regular contributor to Rolling Stone’s National Affairs page written by Matt Taibbi and others, Brodner illustrated the evolving disasters that were the Afghan and Iraq wars–and the unraveling disaster that was the Bush Administration.
Steve Brodner’s collected political work was published in Freedom Fries by Fantagraphics Books in 2004.
Steve made guest appearances on a variety of shows around this time, such as This Week with George Stephanopoulos, The Leonard Lopate Show, PBS Chicago, etc.
In 2007 he engaged in the first web-film series to be linked to a major magazine. “The Naked Campaign”, a series of thirty-three short videos with corresponding magazine art, documented the campaign that resulted in the election of Barack Obama.
He visited the Texas State House at Austin in 2007 for a freewheeling story on the capital for Texas Monthly.
Bingsop’s Fables, set to tales from the Darwinian world of business by the sharp-toothed humorist Stanley Bing. was a published book-full of drawings by Brodner.
A series of short political films for PBS’ Need to Know, 2010-2011, were written and directed by Brodner, produced by The Refinery.
“Artists Against the War”, published Jan. 2011, was inspired by the exhibition by the same name at the Society of Illustrators, which Brodner curated, involving 64 artists contributing art in opposition to the war in Iraq.
In February 2012 Steve Brodner was a contributor to the American Masters PBS Special, Cab Calloway: Sketches
He published a full length NY Times Op-Ed detailing the lives of founding fathers on July 4, 2013.
In 2015, his visit to the energy-self-sufficient Danish island of Samsø, in Denmark resulted in an 8 page piece in Nautilus magazine.
In the summer of 2016 he covered both political conventions for the Village Voice, with art going live on social media.
In May, 2017 Viacom commissioned him to paint three murals for a “One Night Only” tribute to Alec Baldwin that decorated the stage of the Apollo theater in NY for the Paramount TV presentation.
His historical pages were seen in the LA Times and Tablet magazine concerning the surprising origins of Memorial Day, Mothers Day, the first Jewish settlement in New York, etc.
As of 2018 Steve Brodner co-curated a political art show with Francis Di Tommaso for the SVA Gallery titled Art as Witness: Political Graphics 2016-18 about art in the Trump Era.
In addition to his editorial work, Steve Brodner is currently illustrating animation pieces for ABC Disney’s The Alec Baldwin Show.
Throughout his career Steve Brodner expanded his illustration boundaries by originating, writing, editing and designing his own articles for publication.
Awards
Over 30 years he has won numerous awards from the Society of Illustrators, Art Directors Club, the Society of Publication Designers, the Society of Newspaper Designers, American Illustration, Communication Arts.
The 2000 Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, Hunter College, NY.
2005 Society of Illustrators Hamilton King Award for best art in show at the Society of Illustrators, NY.
2007 Reuben Award from the National Cartoonists Society for Best Magazine Illustration of the Year.
2010 St. Gaudens Award for Alumni Achievement, The Cooper Union.
2010 Reuben Award from The National Cartoonists Society for Advertising.
2011 Gold medal, Editorial, Society of Illustrators
As An Educator
Brodner has kept a regular schedule of lecturing. Including appearances at MICA, SCAD, RISDE, California Center for the Arts etc. He has taught at the School of Visual Arts and the Fashion Institute of Technology since 1993. He was named one of “New York’s Leading Professors” by The NY Observer, 2015.
He currently lives in New York with his wife Cynthia Rose.
His daughter, Terry Brodner, is a children’s book author and illustrator.
Interview with Steven Heller for Print magazine, 2009:
