Arnold Roth (born February 25, 1929) is an American cartoonist and illustrator for advertisements, album covers, books, magazines, and newspapers. Novelist John Updike wrote, "All cartoonists are geniuses, but Arnold Roth is especially so."

Career

Roth's art is in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Cartoon Art Museum (San Francisco), Philadelphia's Rosenbach Museum & Library, The Billy Ireland Cartoon Research Library and Museum, the Cartoonmuseum Basel (Basel, Switzerland), plus many private collections.

Magazines

Roth has done covers for The New Yorker and his artwork has appeared in TV Guide, Sports Illustrated and Esquire. His cartoons and illustrations were contributions to the satirical magazines edited by his friend Harvey Kurtzman: Trump (1957), Humbug (1957–58) and Help! (1960–65). Roth's cartoons began appearing in Playboy in the late 1950s. Playboy published ten multi-page installments of his An Illustrated History of Sex series in the late 1970s. Roth was a regular contributor of cartoon features to Punch from the late 1960s until the end of the 1980s. Roth had multi-page features in almost every one of the first 25 issues of National Lampoon (1970–72) until his last satirized the editors of the magazine. He was a political cartoonist for The Progressive from 1981 to 1987.

Comic strips

Roth drew the comic strip Poor Arnold's Almanac as a Sunday strip from 1959 to 1961. He brought it back as a daily panel in 1989-90. Fantagraphics Books published a collection of this strip in 1998.

Awards

Roth received the National Cartoonists Society Advertising and Illustration Award (1982, 1984, 1985); Illustration Award (1976, 1979, 1981); Magazine and Book Illustration Award (1986, 1987, 1988); Special Feature Award (1979); Sports Cartoon Award (1976, 1977); Reuben Award (1983); and their Gold Key Award (their Hall of Fame) in 2000. He served as the organization's president from 1983 to 1985. On June 25, 2009, Roth was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame which honors artists for their “distinguished achievement in the art of illustration.” Past Society presidents select inductees based on their body of work and the impact on the field of illustration. Roth was previously recognized by the Society of Illustrators with numerous Silver and Gold Stars.

Books written and illustrated by Arnold Roth

Books illustrated by Arnold Roth

Album covers

Roth created cover art for jazz and folk albums: