Zdzislaw Czermanski. 1896-1970, and primarily known as a portraitist and caricaturist (see his work in the Harry Ransom Centre at the University of Texas). He settled in the United States in 1943.

"Zdzislaw Czermanski (pronounced "Zhishlaff Chairmanski"), a handsome, extremely self-possessed young man, was born in Lwow (pronounced "Wuff"), Poland, 35 years ago. His father & mother were mummers, but small Zdzislaw was only mildly interested in the theatre. He used to practice drawing caricatures by making faces at himself in a mirror. He learned much more about the human face by working for a time as a barber. During the War he enlisted in crop-headed Marshal Joseph Pilsudski's French-subsidized Polish Legion, was wounded, mentioned in despatches, thrice taken prisoner. In 1919 he gained his first fame as a caricaturist with a pictorial biography of his former commander. European editors, unable to read the text, erroneously decided it was anti-Pilsudski in intent. Three years ago he moved to Paris to live. L'Illustration printed several of his Paris street scenes. British editors were entranced. He went to London to make a series of drawings for the Graphic. In January FORTUNE imported him to the U. S. to depict political and financial leaders. Artist Czermanski speaks no English, converses in firmly Slavic French. Even so he finds New Yorkers sympathetic, far easier to know than either Londoners or Parisians." TIME May 30 1932.

He is one of the few artists whose work appears regularly between FORTUNE's early years and its Post War years. His early style is an elegant taut line with soft tonalities dusted across the outlines. Later cartoons exhibit a sort of exhaustion, a satisfaction with easy solutions, and a loss of his satiric sharpness. Nevertheless he has a fluent drawing style and always catches a resemblance. I do like his depictions of bristly gaunt men, Stafford Cripps and Dean Acheson, for example. His colour work deserves to be better known.