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Edna Eicke, photographed by Tom Funk
Edna Eicke was born in May 1919 in Montclair, New Jersey, and studied advertising
and fashion at Parsons School of Design, graduating at the top of her class. Her
first job was at Sue Williams's Display Studio in New York (1942–3), where she sketched window and other displays and met Tom Funk – then working as a window-display creator and illustrator – whom she married in 1943; they had three children. Initially they lived in West 12th
Street, Greenwich Village, where they featured in a Life
magazine article on working at home and their apartment was photographed for House and Garden
magazine (by André Kertész).
She left Sue Williams to work for Wolf Fyler in the art department at House and Garden,
and produced cover and inside illustrations for that magazine and also for Vogue,
Mademoiselle,
Women's Day
and many others – including, most notably, The New Yorker,
for which from 1945 she painted fifty-one covers, nearly all depicting scenes of
childhood, for which she gained many fans. Many of these covers were inspired by
her own childhood, her life in New York City, and her family (her children posed
for many of them).
In 1953 the family moved to Westport, Connecticut, which at the time was a small town
of artists. She continued to paint New Yorker
covers until 1961, and then illustrated children's books. She died in December 1979.
Selected New Yorker
cover illustrations
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| 1945
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| 12 May, 27 October
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| 1946
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| 2 February, 15 June, 12 October, 21 December
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| 1947
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| 1 February, 3 May, 9 August
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| 1948
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| 29 May, 17 July, 9 October, 18 December
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| 1949
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| 2 April, 14 May, 18 June, 13 August
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| 1950
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| 21 January, 29 July, 28 October
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| 1951
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| 13 January, 30 June, 29 September
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| 1952
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| 1 March, 18 October, 27 December
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| 1953
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| 14 February, 30 May, 8 August, 31 October
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| 1954
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| 16 January, 29 May, 31 July
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| 1955
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| 26 March, 7 May, 13 August
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| 1956
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| 21 January, 30 June, 20 October
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| 1957
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| 19 January, 20 April, 8 June, 27 July, 24 August, 14 December
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| 1958
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| 16 August
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| 1959
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| 28 February, 20 June, 10 October
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| 1961
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| 12 August
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Bibliography
Seymour Barnard, A Child's Garden of Relatives,
illustrated by Edna Eicke (New York: Rinehart, 1950)
An illustration from A Child's Garden of Relatives
The Complete Book of Covers from the New Yorker 1925–1989,
with a foreword by John Updike (New York: Knopf, 1989)
Jeanne Davis, 'Edna Eicke (1917–1979): A Retrospective', Westport News,
16 January 1980
Edna Eicke, The Children Who Got Married
(New York: Windmill Books, 1969)
——, Lillian, Morgan and Teddy,
by Edna Eicke, story by Robert Kraus (New York: Windmill Books, 1971)
——, What's Your Name?
(New York: Windmill Books, 1968)
Mary Ford, 'Westport's Edna Eicke Has New Book Published', Daily Town Crier
(Westport), 1 November 1968
Robert Kraus, The Tree That Stayed Up Until Next Christmas,
illustrated by Edna Eicke (New York: Windmill Books, 1972)
All images © The Estate of Edna Eicke
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