Sardi's is a continental restaurant located at 234 West 44th Street, between Broadway and Eighth Avenue, in the Theater District of Manhattan, New York City. Sardi's opened at its current location on March 5, 1927. It is known for the caricatures of Broadway celebrities on its walls, of which there are over a thousand.
Sardi's entrance: rows of caricatures are visible through the upstairs windows
Sardi's neon sign
The ground floor dining room, with celebrity caricatures lining the upper walls
Image: Sardisbook
A caricature is a rendered image showing the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or other artistic drawings. Caricatures can be either insulting or complimentary, and can serve a political purpose, be drawn solely for entertainment, or for a combination of both. Caricatures of politicians are commonly used in newspapers and news magazines as political cartoons, while caricatures of movie stars are often found in entertainment magazines.
Caricature of Aubrey Beardsley by Max Beerbohm (1896), taken from Caricatures of Twenty-five Gentlemen
Ancient Pompeiian graffiti caricature of a politician
A Caricature Group, c. 1766, by John Hamilton Mortimer
James Gillray's The Plumb-pudding in danger (1805), which caricatured Pitt and Napoleon, was voted the most famous of all UK political cartoons.
