Illuminating Work: Cartoonist Contributes to Chief-Leader

Barbara Smaller has done stand-up at a Playboy Club, worked nursing shifts at hospitals and clinics, and earned degrees in labor studies and graphic arts.  “My best job is I was a night guard at the Art Institute [of Chicago],” she said from the Hudson Valley, where she now lives after decades on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. “It was a great job—and very influential.” 

Clearly: She has since published hundreds of cartoons in publications such as The National Lampoon, Cosmopolitan and The New Yorker. Her work has also appeared in psychology textbooks, where her drawings illustrate some of the quirks that drive and motivate us.