Showing posts with label caricature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label caricature. Show all posts

Monday, November 17, 2008

Dec 8: Swann fellow speaks on Civil War prints

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

101 Independence Avenue SE
Washington DC 20540
Phone: (202) 707-2905
Fax: (202) 707-9199

November 17, 2008

Public contact: Martha Kennedy (202) 707-9115, mkenn@loc.gov

MAZIE HARRIS TO DISCUSS CIVIL WAR ERA CHROMOLITHOGRAPHS BY HENRY LOUIS STEPHENS AT LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, DEC. 8


Swann Foundation grantee Mazie Harris, in a lecture at the Library of Congress, will discuss the Civil War Era chromolithographs by Henry Louis Stephens, the primary illustrator for the satirical New York journal Vanity Fair.

Harris will present the lecture, “A Colorful Union: The Development of Union Patriotism in Henry Louis Stephens’ 1863 Chromolithographs,” at noon on Monday, Dec. 8, in Dining Room A on the sixth floor of the James Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, DC.

In her illustrated talk, Harris will describe her research on the work of Stephens (1824-1882), a caricaturist as well as illustrator. She will draw on examples of his imagery from works held in the Library’s Marian S. Carson Collection and other source material in the Prints and Photographs Division.

The Emancipation Proclamation compelled Stephens to reconsider his previously virulently anti-abolitionist propaganda, according to Harris. In her talk, she will contend that after Abraham Lincoln’s groundbreaking executive orders in 1862 and 1863, Stephens deployed color printing and caricature in an attempt to reformulate views of race relations in the North and mobilize military enlistment.

Harris will analyze Stephens’ visual narratives by considering hand-written directions to the printer that the illustrator scrawled on the margins of each sketch for the series. These technical notes on color, which could be regarded simply as artistic instructions, when carefully examined and assessed, make explicit the particular political ideology of the prints.

Harris is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at Brown University. She completed an M.A. in art history from Boston University, and became interested in the work of Henry Louis Stephens while working as a curatorial assistant in the Agnes Mongan Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings and Photographs in Harvard University’s Fogg Art Museum.

This presentation is part of continuing activities of the Caroline and Erwin Swann Foundation for Caricature and Cartoon to support the study, interpretation, preservation and appreciation of original works of humorous and satiric art by graphic artists from around the world. The foundation is overseen by an advisory board composed of scholars, collectors, cartoonists and Library of Congress staff members.

The foundation strives to award one fellowship annually (with a stipend of up to $15,000) to assist scholarly research and writing projects in the field of caricature and cartoon. For 2008-2009, because of an unusually large number of strong applications, the foundation’s advisory board chose to support five applicants with smaller awards instead of selecting a single recipient of the fellowship.

Applications for the academic year 2009-2010 are due Feb. 13, 2009. For more information about the fellowship, visit www.loc.gov/rr/print/swann/swannhome/ or email swann@loc.gov.

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PR08-216
11/17/08
ISSN: 0731-3527

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Caricature waaaay back in the Reagan era

Back in the 1980s when I was in college in DC, great caricature posters of President Reagan and his cabinet would appear around town glued up overnight. Robbie Conal was the artist and here's a profile of what he's doing now -- but DC needs him back! There are still plenty of politicians who need caricaturing in town.

See "Robbie Conal and the Art of Character Assassination: Guerrilla pop," By Dwayne Booth, LA Weekly October 21, 2008.

Boy, I'm sorry I never got any of those posters peeled off although I'm not sure I need to see Ed Meese ever again, even in a caricature.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Good Richard Thompson interview in City Paper

Amanda Hess of the Washington City Paper sent a note saying that she'd interviewed Richard Thompson in the current issue and I'd missed it, although I did catch the "cartoonist with an odd theme" as I prefer to put it. I've got to stop reading the paper after going to the dentist.

I just read her article - it's good one. People aren't paying enough attention to Richard's caricature although that's how he made his name. Recently I was at his house and saw the sketches for his Palin finger puppet in the recycling, along with a bunch of photos of her he'd printed from the web. It was a fascinating look at how caricature works (I'm not a cartoonist and can't draw). For those who are interested, Richard runs a lot of his caricatures on his blog.

Monday, October 06, 2008

Hanoch Piven caricature exhibit in DC

Thanks to Casey Shaw of USA Weekend for the tip about this show at the Sixth & I St, NW synagogue!

What Candidates are Really Made of & Other Famous Faces
Sunday, September 21 - Monday, November 13

Sunday, September 21, 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. (Children's Workshop)
Sunday, September 21, 3:00 p.m. (Opening)

Israeli artist Hanoch Piven creates evocative pop portraits of celebrities and notable politicians using found objects such as bubble gum, light bulbs and electrical wire. In the spirit of the upcoming elections, the exhibition will feature two original commissioned pieces of the presidential candidates. Find out what McCain and Obama are REALLY made of! Other portraits will include musicians, entertainers and U.S. and Israeli politicians.

Several of Piven's portraits are on permanent collection at the Library of Congress. His most recent project is the creation of the Hafatzim Mitlotsetsim TV program, which airs on the Israeli children's channel, Hop. Piven has also published five children's books, one of which Time Magazine named one of the best 10 children's books of the year. Piven is a regular contributor to Haaretz and his work has appeared in major publications throughout the world, including the New York Times, Newsweek, Rolling Stone and Time Magazine in the United States. He won the gold medal from the Society of Illustrators and the silver medal from the Society of Publication Designers for his designs.

Viewing hours are Monday - Thursday and the first Sunday of the month from 12 noon - 3:00 p.m., or call 202/408-3100 to schedule an appointment.

In addition to the exhibit opening, there will also be a workshop for children on Sunday, September 21. The exhibit opening is free and the cost of the children's workshop is $6 per child. R.S.V.P. for these events to Sonia Rosen here or call 202/408-3100.

Monday, September 08, 2008

Arthur Szyk in NY Times

Szyk was a Jewish cartoonist who fled to New York and did some awesomely hard-hitting propaganda during World War II. He was the subject of a couple of great exhibits in DC about five years ago too. This article discusses a new exhibit of his work in Germany -
"A Caricaturist, but No Funny Stuff Here," By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN, New York Times September 8, 2008.

I'll see if I can dig up my reviews of the exhibits for IJoCA and post them here later this week.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Bush political cartoon ad


The NRDC Action Fund paid for a full-page caricature/political cartoon ad in today's Washington Post showing George W bush as a snake-oil salesman. It's a lovely piece and they've put a pdf online - I can't recall anything similar since Pat Oliphant did a series of full page ads about airlines at least a decade ago.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Beeler's caricatures


I saw Nate Beeler today, and he says that he's doing caricatures for the Examiner chain. Three caricatures a week, one each for the Washington, Baltimore and San Francisco editions, published on the new Sunday paper. You can see the first ones on his blog now - the one I've lifted is DC Mayor Fenty.

Monday, February 04, 2008

John Kascht caricature videos on Wash Post site?

Did anyone know about these? I certainly didn't until the Journalista blog from Seattle pointed them out. There's seven up now - Obama, Clinton, Edwards, McCain, Guliani, Huckabee and Romney - each is slightly over 3 minutes.

Friday, January 18, 2008

Risko covers Post's Weekend

Noted caricaturist Robert Risko did the cover caricature of Woody Allen for Friday's Weekend section. Risko's usually seen more often in the New Yorker -- perhaps his illustrations is where the whole year's budge for Tom the Dancing Bug went. Apparently they didn't pay him for web rights though.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Writings on comics by American U professor

I was introduced to American U professor Erik Dussere last night at the PEN/Faulkner talk. He's written a couple of articles on comics:

"Subversion in the Swamp: Pogo and the Folk in the McCarthy Era," Journal of American Culture 26 (1; March 2003): 134-141

"The queer world of the X-Men; OK, Wolverine never built a shrine to Judy Garland, but 'the strangest teens' were obviously homo superior -- emphasis on the homo," Salon (July 12, 2000)

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Another finger puppet!!!!

SPX meant I couldn't get this mentioned on Saturday, but Richard Thompson caricatured Hilary Clinton as a finger puppet this week. I've made it and she's glaring at my house guests now.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Two minor bits

Today's Express gave The Jungle Book dvd a glowing review. The article's not online.

And in the Post's Food section, the Palm, the restaurant chain with local caricatures got a write-up with a photograph of said caricatures, and the photograph actually is online.

Friday, September 28, 2007

Thomas Fleming, Washington caricaturist

I picked up a damaged copy of Around the Capital with Uncle Hank by Thomas Fleming, New York: Nutshell Publishing Co, 1902 yesterday.

Actually, the web says he studied worked at the New York Sun, New York World, and Commercial Advertiser, and the most famous of his cartoons was "Senator Tillman's Allegorical Cow" whatever that might have been.

In this book, every other page is a cartoon, usually a caricature of a large-headed politician, like the ones that follow, but he also did line illustrations that look influenced by Phil May. An example can be seen here in the Corcoran Gallery cartoon where the old maid is admiring the Venus de Milo's breasts; for those wondering, back in the Museum's early days it had lots of displays of casts of classical sculptures for study. Actually, I would like to see that come back as you get a tactical sense that photography and books can't convey. And the tyranny of the art world for the original object can get tiresome.

I have nothing to say about the sheep-hugger though.









Friday, August 31, 2007

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Miguel Covarrubias portraits on display this fall.


The great Mexican caricaturist has material - "portraits of and by" - borrowed from the National Portrait Gallery in the exhibit "Mexican Treasures of the Smithsonian" in the underground Ripley Center from September 4 - November 11.


Last year's exhibit of his work was well worth seeing. Here's the review I wrote for the International Journal of Comic Art 8:2:

Miguel Covarrubias: Mexican Genius in the United States. Washington, DC: Cultural Institute of Mexico, May 3-July 7, 2006.

Covarrubias, while little remembered today, was a giant in magazine illustration and caricature from the 1920s though the 1940s. According to the promotional material for the exhibit, he illustrated for Vanity Fair, Vogue, The New Yorker, Fortune, Life and Time while also illustrating over twenty books. Surprisingly, he also did pioneering cultural anthropology research when he visited Bali with his wife in the 1930s.

This exhibit also consists of two smaller shows. On the ground level of the building, an aging mansion, sketches and studies from the Universidad de las Américas were displayed in a set of unadorned side galleries off the lobby. The fifty-two sketches appeared to be studies for more complete work. They were mostly on cheap newsprint paper, and the identity of the subject was frequently lost except for the famous like Marlene Dietrich, D.H. Lawrence, Joe Louis, Walt Disney, and Benny Goodman. The sketches showed Covarrubias working with a quick, forceful stroke, and "Unknown Character" in the first room demonstrated that Edward Sorel must have been familiar with his work. In the final room of the galleries, two or three films were supposed to be showing, but none were. The press release listed two films by José G. Benítez Wall, A Mexican in New York (1997) and Miguel Covarrubias 1904-1957 (1996) and the wall text listed a third, A Master Artist's Trade (1997).

Returning to the lobby, the visitor (of which I was the only one) could examine exhibit cases with published versions of some of his book and magazine work. Books he illustrated included non-fiction and non-cartoon works such as The Aztecs: People of the Sun. He wrote and illustrated Mexico South: The Isthmus of Tehuantepec (Knopf 1967) and drew striking maps and Olmec heads for it. In Fine Art Color Prints (Chicago: Peoples Book Club, 1945), Covarrubias contributed a very well done and very complex "Map of America" showing the distribution of natural resources. The exhibit cases also included Vanity Fair from June 1933 showing one of his series of Impossible Interviews -- "#18 Herr Adolf Hitler and Huey S. 'Hooey' Long versus Josef Stalin and Benito Mussolini." These Impossible Interviews were a major component of the second part of the exhibit, which was up four flights of red, fraying but thickly carpeted stairs, lined by mural scenes painted by Cueva del Rio from 1934-1941.

The fourth floor held the exhibit Miguel Covarrubias: Caricaturista, curated in 2004 by Kathryne B. Tovo for Humanities Texas with the University of Texas' Ransom Humanities Research Center. It was not readily apparent if the original show consisted of all reproductions, but the traveling version did. Given the quality of Covarrubias' artwork, the use of reproductions was a considerable disappointment, especially since the Ransom Center appears to have had access to the original works. In spite of that, this exhibit was a good representation of the breadth of his career, and was very well-labeled with biographical information on his subjects including scientists and explorers like William Beebe and Richard E. Byrd.

The label for the Impossible Interview in Vanity Fair of December 1931 succinctly explained the series rationale:

This regular feature paired two people who could not meet in real life in an imaginary conversation. Featuring such ill-matched celebrity pairs as a birth control advocate with the mother of quintuplets, a speakeasy hostess with the president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, or a sultry Marlene Dietrich with moralist Senator Smith Brookhart, each interview offered rich potential for comic conversation and visual contrasts -- with the less respectable figure often achieving a slight edge.

Sorel's debt to Covarrubias can again be seen in his recent similar series for the Atlantic Monthly collected as First Encounters: A Book of Memorable Meetings (Knopf, 1994). The time is overdue for a collection of these original Interviews.

These rooms were filled interesting illustrations. Two especially worth noting were a skillful parody of Rockwell Kent that Covarrubias did in Kent's style in 1932, and an illustration of Walt Disney in Noah's Ark with all of his characters, done for Vogue in 1937. The Disney caricature was the finished version of the sketch seen on the first floor, and the failure to display the two side-by-side highlighted a disappointment of this exhibit. Overall, the show should have been better, but for those with little knowledge of Covarrubias' long and varied career, it was an adequate introduction to his work.

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Comic books, caricature, anime, adaptions in today's freeby papers

Check out the Onion online - they've been posting expanded versions of last week's comics issue.

In today's free papers, in addition to the Tek Jansen story -

Rosenberg, Scott. 2007.
Based on a fake story: Out of a nonexistent novel comes a comic riddled with humor.
[Washington Post] Express (August 9): 19

There's a Stardust story -

Dawson, Angela / Entertainment News Wire. 2007.
She's got star power: Claire Danes has a heaven-sent role in the fantasy 'Stardust'.
[Washington Post] Express (August 9): E11

An anime singer appearance - Yoko Ishida, 'Sailor Moon' singer, singing at Jaxx on Saturday.

And in the Examiner, a rare caricature article -
Jeff Dufour and Patrick Gavin.
Yeas and Nays: Permanent Presence at The Palm - Mark Foley’s here to stay.
Washington Examiner (August 9): 6

Monday, May 14, 2007

Political caricaturist Krystyna Edmondson

Political caricaturist Krystyna Edmondson is profiled by her daughter in "Word for Word, Images of My Mother" by Anna Edmondson, Washington Post, Monday, May 14, 2007; C08.

Also in Style, Mike Peters' Mother Goose and Grimm is a tribute to Johnny Hart and B.C.