HARVEY SCHMIDT

Schmidt & Benton

“Two names that singly may have become familiar to Esquire readers have recently been joined by the ampersand of success,” begins an article in the November 1959 issue of Esquire magazine. The parties in question were Robert Benton, then the recently ascended Art Director of said magazine, and Harvey Schmidt, freelance illustrator.

Benton and Schmidt were then enjoying tremendous success in the publication of their In & Out Book – “currently selling like hot mink coats in the third edition,” the article quipped. A companion volume, The Worry Book, followed in 1962.

The two men already shared a decade-long personal history, having met and become friends (and roommates) at the University of Texas.  There, both had been art majors and had worked together on the university’s humor magazine. Schmidt was the AD back then and Benton an aspiring cartoonist. By the late ‘50’s, Schmidt and Benton were most definitely ‘in.’ — Today’s Inspiration