Blanchard, Martha (1916- 1970)

Martha Blanchard original cartoon artwork

 

Blanchard was one the most successful women gag cartoonist of the 1950's and 1960's, an era where the number of women cartoonists was tiny. She studied at the Art Students League. Her studio/home was in New York's Greenwich Village, just a few blocks north of Washington Square. She sold her first cartoon in 1947. Her work appeared in many of the day's leading magazines, including Collier's, American Magazine, Look, Pictorial Review and Punch. She was a prominent contributor to The Saturday Evening Post for two decades.

 

Blanchard's cartoons usually depicted the plight of the young single woman and young marrieds in the 1950's. Rather than the decidedly misogynist gags about women which pervaded the era, Blanchard's drawings often were ones to which women could actually relate. Blanchard's cartoons appeared in all of the top markets. She was also a book illustrator. A member of the Art Students League and the National Cartoonists Society, she was a fixture in the New York City postwar cartooning circles.