Eldon Dedini

Eldon Dedini
American, 1921-2006

Joined Carmel Art Association in 1957.

Eldon Dedini was born in King City, California on June 29, 1921. He attended Hartnell College in Salinas and was a graduate of the Chouinard Art Institute, Los Angeles. In 1944 he married (fellow art student) painter Virginia Conroy. He worked for the Salinas Index-Journal and the Salinas Morning Post as a staff cartoonist, and from 1944-46 for Disney Studios in the Story Department. Subsequently, he was with Esquire magazine from 1946-50 as a staff cartoonist and gagwriter. His career as a cartoonist is best known from his long association with The New Yorker, starting in 1950 and in 1960 for Playboy magazine until his death in January 2006.

Dedini received Best Magazine Cartoonist award from the National Cartoonists Society, New York City in 1958, 1961 and 1964 and the award for Best Color Cartoon in the Playboy Annual in 1978. He authored and illustrated an album of cartoons called The Dedini Gallery (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1961), A Much Much Better World (Simon & Shuster, 1985) and illustrated books by Max Shulman and Art Buchwald among others. He was also the illustrator of a French Language textbook, La Clef (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970). His work is featured in a number of cartoon anthologies including The New Yorker and Playboy.

Dedini was a member of the National Cartoonists Society, New York, and the Cartoonists Association, New York. He was a contributor to many popular magazines including Punch, Collier’s Saturday Evening Post, Judge, Sports Illustrated, True, Holiday and Art in America.

“I like to think my cartoons have been and are influenced by Peter Arno and Peter Bruegel, and by the whole Italian Renaissance.” – Eldon Dedini

Collections:
The Achenbach Collection
Library of Congress
Jacqueline Kennedy
Hayward King
Robert Lescher
New York University
Robert Kennedy
Allen Dulles
Max Shulman

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