SEX

OWEN SMITH ON SEX AND VIOLENCE:

“I had just done this painting of a boxer (opposite) and I thought, ‘I like the painting, it would be a good cover.’ I knew that the editor, David Remnick, has written about boxing, so I was shamelessly thinking, ‘Maybe he’ll go for it because it’s boxing!’

“I get a lot of assignments for sex and violence. I don’t know what that says about me. I’m a pretty mild- mannered guy, but I guess I get it all out in my artwork. It’s probably the way I paint—there’s this robustness to the way the figures are, or they’re sexy, or they’re sweaty. When it’s for The New Yorker, people respond: ‘Sweaty people! What’s that doing on the cover?’

“I did a series of covers for the Fiction Issue. I was coming from a period of pulp fiction paintings, where a cover’s meant to grab you, rather than be the kind of polite cover that can be on your coffee table for a long time. People got used to the idea that The New Yorker cover’s something you live with for a long time, so it’s not too offensive. But now we’re gonna be in your face a little bit more. It’s a different generation and we can be scary music and still be pretty nice.

“We did one for Christmas where the guy has been shot and is lying under the tree. That was more than enough for some readers: ‘It’s Christmas and you’re having murders on the cover? Cancel my subscription!’ Those were the covers I got the most comments on. A lurid cover every now and again wakes people up.”

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS: What is the
woman doing in the ring, what’s her relationship to
the boxer, and, an especially salient question consid-
ering that a viewer follows the characters’ eyes, what
are they both looking at?