Richard McGuire | |
|---|---|
| McGuire in 2015 | |
| Born | 1957 (age 68–69) New Jersey, US |
| Alma mater | Rutgers University |
| Known for | Graphic novel |
| Notable work | "Here" |
Richard McGuire (born 1957 [1] in New Jersey) is an American graphic novelist, artist, and musician. [2] [3] [4] [5] His illustrations have been published in The New York Times , The New Yorker , and Le Monde, and his work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Morgan Library & Museum. [6] His comic "Here" (first published in 1989) is among the most lauded comics from recent decades, with an updated graphic novel version published by Pantheon Books in December 2014. [7] [8] [9] A film adaptation of Here, directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, was released in 2024. [10]
McGuire was born and raised in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. [11] He graduated from Rutgers University. [12]
Soon after graduating college, McGuire and a group of friends formed the band Liquid Idiot before relocating to Manhattan in 1979, where the group reformed as the dance-punk band Liquid Liquid, with McGuire serving as the band's bassist. [3] [13] [12] Liquid Liquid is best known for the song "Cavern", whose bass line has been frequently sampled. [14] The group disbanded in 1983 but reformed in 2008 and have played in multiple countries.
McGuire's early art career was as a street artist in the vibrant 1980s East Village scene. He participated in the landmark 1981 "New York/New Wave" group exhibition at PS1 in Long Island City, alongside notable figures such as Robert Mapplethorpe, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and David Byrne. [12]
McGuire was a key contributor to the 1995 chain story / comic jam The Narrative Corpse , shepherded by Art Spiegelman and Robert Sikoryak. McGuire was brought in to link Strand 2 of the story back to Strand 1 (bridging the contributions of Carol Swain and Drew Friedman). [15]
McGuire's first cover for The New Yorker was published in 1993; from 2006 to 2011 his work appeared regularly on the magazine's covers.
In 2001, McGuire made two limited-edition, screenprinted artist's books for the French publisher Cornelius. The first one, Popeye and Olive, was an "abstract love story". In the second book, P + O, McGuire "rearranged the silhouetted shapes of the two characters into new combinations which became a 'vocabulary of the relationship'." [16] In 2023 an offset edition of Popeye and Olive was published by Fotokino. [17]
In 2009, McGuire was awarded The Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers fellowship at the New York Public Library. [18]