After the war, still very much in the harness at Vogue, Eric divided his time between Paris and New York. Always a heavy drinker, he now slipped into alcoholism. Norman Parkinson claimed that, sober, Eric was unable to perform to his own exacting standards. Parkinson described one sitting with his wife, Wenda. Supporting himself against a wall, Eric ‘lunged’ at the paper and drew a single eye, and, lower down on the page, an ankle. Then, as an astonished Parkinson looked on, he joined the two together; ‘he scratched up the calf, behind the knee, along the hips, the waist and suddenly conjured from the air an arm, a hand and its bracelet, the shoulders, the neck and now his bent stick of charcoal circumnavigated the skull, with miracle intention enclosing in its correct position the original eye.’
- David Downton, “Masters of Fashion Illustration”, pp. 70
