COVERS, LIVE!

Six photographers reinterpret classic New Yorker covers.

- Michael Schulman

Cover by Rea Irvin, February 21, 1925.

In the hundred-year history of The New Yorker, photography has appeared on the cover exactly twice. For the magazine's seventy-fifth anniversary, in 2000, the dog-loving portraitist William Wegman dressed up one of his Weimaraners as Eustace Tilley, our dandyish mascot, originally drawn by Rea Irvin.

Spike Lee, filmmaker.

(The butterfly that canine Eustace studies through his monocle also has a dog's head.) But no human had broken the barrier until last month, when Cindy Sherman's image of herself as Eustace covered a special issue on the culture industry.

Cover by Barbara Shermund, October 3, 1925.

Otherwise, what distinguishes New Yorker covers is the imaginative reach of pen and paintbrush: political metaphors (Lady Liberty walking a tightrope), whimsical New York street scenes, daydreaming cats. Every week comes a work of art.

Sadie Sink, actor.

But what if those images could spring to life, like Pygmalion's statue? For The New Yorker's centenary, the magazine asked six photographers to reinterpret covers from our archives as flesh-and-blood portraits, starring familiar faces.