Background
Edmund Duffy was born on March 1, 1899, in Jersey City, New Jersey. He was the son of John Joseph Duffy, a policeman, and Anna Hughes.
Edmund Duffy was born on March 1, 1899, in Jersey City, New Jersey. He was the son of John Joseph Duffy, a policeman, and Anna Hughes.
Duffy attended elementary school in Jersey City and in 1914 enrolled at New York's Art Students' League, where he studied under George Bridgman, Boardman Robinson, and John Sloan. He graduated in 1919.
Duffy's first major contribution to a newspaper was a sketch of the Armistice Day festivities of World War I for the Sunday magazine of the New York Tribune. He also submitted his work to the weekend magazines and sports pages of the New York Herald, New York Evening Post, and Scribner's and Century magazines.
In 1920 Duffy withdrew his entire savings of $150 and sailed to Europe. He sketched briefly for the London Evening News before moving on to Paris. There he studied art, reveled in the city's nightlife, and dispatched his sketches to the New York Herald.
Upon his return to the United States in 1922, Duffy illustrated for the Sunday magazine and theater section of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the New York Leader, and Collier's and Century magazines.
In 1924, Duffy became editorial cartoonist for the Baltimore Sun, where he developed a national reputation and won three Pulitzer Prizes. His political cartoons were notable for their bold line, stark realism, and blunt condemnation of injustice and hypocrisy. They were stylistically simple and often bore short captions that drove home the point. Duffy drew from deep conviction.
"The Outstretched Hand, " generally regarded as his most powerful statement. A condemnation of German duplicity and a warning against future appeasement, the cartoon appeared in the Baltimore Sun on October 7, 1939, shortly after Hitler's invasion of Poland and its division between Germany and Russia. The illustration is dominated by a huge Adolf Hitler in full Nazi regalia. Figures labeled "minorities" cower about his feet and smoldering ruins fill the background. In his left hand, Hitler clutches ragged sheets of paper, one marked "broken promises, " another "treaty, " and a third "no more territorial demands. " His outstretched right hand bears the words "peace offer" and drips with blood.
Occasionally Duffy wrote book reviews and other features for the Baltimore Sun. In a front-page story in August 1935, he covered in moving detail the funeral of humorist Will Rogers. He resigned from the Sun in 1948 and joined the Saturday Evening Post as editorial cartoonist in early 1949.
Duffy retired in 1957, having drawn some 8, 000 cartoons during a career that spanned nearly four decades. His work has been exhibited at various institutions around the country, including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City and the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery in San Marino, California.
(Book by Harrison, S. L., Duffy, Edmund)
Of slender build, Duffy was careful about his dress and was amiable and easygoing.
Quotes from others about the person
"If Duffy don't believe it, Duffy don't draw it. "
On November 26, 1924, Duffy married Anne Rector, a painter; they had one daughter.