Bruce Stark, a renowned sports artist whose cartoons and caricatures graced the pages of the Daily News from 1960-82, died Saturday afternoon in Lakeland Regional Hospital in Lakeland, Fla. after a long battle with emphysema. He was 79.
Although he penned thousands of cartoons for The News and other publications, Stark's true passion was portrait art, to which he devoted much of his work after moving to Florida in 1982.
At the Daily News, Stark's cartoons were featured in the sports section on the days cartoonist Bill Gallo was off. Stark often referred to himself as "Bill Gallo's caddy" but was himself an equally acclaimed cartoonist who won two Reuben Awards from the National Cartoonist Society as outstanding cartoonist of the year.
Two of Stark's most famous cartoons for The News were his front-page face portrait of Gil Hodges and little "Metsie" under the headline "We Win It" after the Mets won the NL East in 1969, and a hastily-drawn Roberto Clemente on New Year's Day after the Pittsburgh Pirate perished in a plane crash in Nicaragua on Dec. 31, 1972.
"He'd already had a cartoon done for the paper and he was at a New Year's Eve party when he heard about Clemente's death," recalled Stark's son, Ron, himself an accomplished artist. "He said he just couldn't let that cartoon stay after such a tragedy to one of baseball's biggest stars who was cut down in his prime. So he came home and put together this half-finished cartoon of Clemente on an artboard and titled it 'Unfinished Business'."
Ron Stark said his father's proudest moment came after he'd won one of his Reuben Awards at the National Cartoonists dinner and he came across the renowned sports cartoonist Willard Mullin, who was his idol, and shouted over to him: 'You're the best, Willard!' only to have Mullan shout back at him: 'Nope, tonight you are!' "
Stark grew up in New Jersey and served with the Navy during the Korean War. He was working as a ditch digger, while spending his leisure hours drawing pictures, when, at his father's urging, he took some of his drawings over to the Daily News and surprised himself by getting hired. He began at The News doing caricatures of movie stars and entertainers before moving over to sports.
After retiring from The News in 1982, Stark freelanced for TV Guide, Time, Fortune and Forbes and his works are on permanent display at both the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.
"In terms of pure art, there was nobody better than Bruce Stark," said John Pennisi, the acclaimed sports artist for the New York Baseball Writers annual dinner program. "He was in his own league between his illustrations and caricatures, the same as Norman Rockwell."
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