Happy New Year 2018

The tradition of seeing in a new calendar year with an image of a baby is a time-honored one, maybe dating as far back as Greek Antiquity. Certainly the metaphor of a new year as a baby is apt and the same can be said for the "old year"--the ending one--being represented as an old man, or Father Time perhaps.

J.C. Leyendecker, "New Year, 1933," oil.

The New Year Baby tradition came in graphic form many times in the 20th century, but the most memorable images came from the brush of J.C. Leyendecker. In Mr. Leyendecker's magazine covers, the baby (always a toddler) engages in an activity representing the new year. For example, the Saturday Evening Post cover for 1933 shows a hopeful New Year Baby pushing the stock market average higher and higher, an optimistic view in the depths of the Great Depression. These covers were a tradition for several decades, and Mr. Leyendecker painted the last of his babies only a few years before he died in 1951.

J.C. Leyendecker, "New Year Baby 1950"

2015 editorial cartoon by Bob Englehart

Although Father Time is often used as a familiar representation of the old year passing away, that particular tradition was mostly in editorial cartoons and on the comics pages. Editorial cartoonists still juxtapose the baby and the old man often meeting as the year changes. There is ample political subject matter for many of the cartoons; the old man is quite the worse for wear much of the time. Sometimes he might appear in tatters (during a recession for example) or perhaps wounded or lame. In contrast the baby almost always looks plump and fresh, free of blemish or fear. In 2015 though, one cartoonist thought up a new wrinkle: the new year looked worse than the old. Prescient, one could say.

This year, my own take on 2017 evolved out of a digital attempt to draw Father Time as a symbol of the year just past. Although he isn't beaten up, bandaged, or wounded, his expression was intended as a reflection of the dreadful times we've just lived through. The caption was spontaneous.


Happy (and better) New Year.