As a huge fan of the Addams Family, I was delighted to find out the 1952 painting from Charles Addams in this summer’s New Yorker edition. I had no idea that the family members first appeared in the pages of The New Yorker, in 1938 (and that they were not properly christened with individual names until the début of the “Addams Family” TV show, in 1964.)

I couldn’t stop thinking about how acutely the painting describes and emphasizes the features of each character (that we find in the TV show, movie and musical): the jovial face of Gomez, the roundness of Uncle Fester, the willowy Morticia, the taciturn butler Lurch…

The online version is even better than the magazine as they use parallax to highlight elements of the composition (the focal point, horizontal lines and vertical axis of the painting…) in an interactive manner. I wish the printed magazine mentioned this interactive online option so that more readers could enjoy it.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/09/the-addams-family-secret