Now on exhibit at The Museum of the City of New York: “Mac Conner: A New York Life,” a retrospective of artwork from—sigh—“one of the original ‘Mad Men’.” Conner was a commercial artist working in Manhattan in the 1950s and 60s, doing illustrations for ad agencies as well as magazines. His style was deft, competent, and relatively conservative. But, given the benefit of hindsight, it is now recognized as wonderfully of its time, even surprising in the way it invests mid-century life with modest drama. Personally, I find it to be superb stuff.

The exhibition features some seventy of Conner’s works and runs until 19 Jan 2015. The New York Times also ran a story about it in Stuart Elliott’s advertising column (which is technically on the Business desk; you’ll have to keep holding your breath if you want serious appraisal of commercial arts from the paper’s Arts section).