The Cartoon Museum - Caricatures Exhibition

Cartoon's have always inspired animation's, so when I went to London in January I jumped at the chance to go to the Cartoon Museum. It's in a really funny part of London, near the British Museum. It's almost just like another shop front, and it really reminded me of Red House Museum. I did however really really enjoy seeing the size of the cartoons in person. When you grow up and you have art classes your taught not to doodle, not to draw cartoons, not to recognise sketches as being important, and then to see cartoons and caricatures almost feels like your being rebellious to everything you've ever been taught in art class. It's fantastic so freeing to know that you can break the rules and still make money. It may seem silly but it makes sense in my head. I think it's also important to recognise at this stage that they are more than doodles in some cases they are pieces of art, full fledged illustrations and can influence me through character design and mark making.

So here's a link to the museum website and then whilst I was there I made a list of my favourite artist's which I'm just going to recap because some of them I don't remember so I'll give them a quick google and just do a short paragraph on each what I liked.

http://www.cartoonmuseum.org/

David Low

So David Low is primarily a cartoonist who was active during the first world war, I think this is when the peak of cartoon's hit the newspapers, as photography hadn't quite developed to the standard we have today, so more needed to be churned out on a regular basis where as today because we can fill the pages of the newspaper with photo's we expect drawings to be fuller fledged and more illustration like. So what I like about the earlier works is the line work there's confidence in the simplicity of it. It's not about how it's drawn it was always about what it said.

Max Beerbohm

What I like most about Max is his ability to portray details of characters that bring them to life, his style is so personal yet charming.

George Walker

The thing about George Walker is the amount of detail he puts into his painted Caricatures, they are instantly recognisable, especially due to his famous representation of George Bush that has inspired a certain representation of him decades since.

Ronald Searle

Ronald Searle is one of my most favourite Illustrator/cartoonist, and the cat prints are actually photo's of prints I have. I love how his style is across between Ralph Steadman and Quentin Blake, it's really unique not many people can put so much character into what is inky and blotty, it's capturing the charm of life in an imprefect way like it is in reality. It's unusual and beautiful.

Roaul Dufy

Sketches by Roaul Dufy, the fauve painter was the last thing I expected to see in the museum but I was so grateful I did, there's a naivety yet confidence in his line work I was attracted to. I really enjoyed getting a glimpse into how he draws and plans his paintings because I really love his work his eye for colour is incredible, and is something I've always grown up with because my dad's house had several prints of his around. His style feels homely to me.

Jon Leech

Jon Leech's work came before that of David Low and I think that is very visible in his line work, etchings were very popular during his time and it a lot more in that style with all the lines and excess of detail and I thought it was just interesting to compare that and the confidence that's in David's Low's work and how the style of cartoon's developed throughout time.

John Tenniel

Again another person's work I have connected with, some of the earliest illustrations for Alice in wonderland, again in an etching style.

Robert Cruikshank

So Isaac Robert Cruikshank is a really well know cartoonist, and probably had the largest number of works in the museum along with HM Bateman, and then the reason I wrote his name down is because I think it's unusual for a cartoonist of his time to have so much colour, and it makes them alot more eye catching.

HM Bateman

So the reason I liked HM Bateman was because it was like a matured version of Cruikshank with less line work, and also once you read the titles because his work is closer to our time they seemed funnier because they were easier to understand.

Bruce Bairnsfather

I really enjoyed Bairnsfather's work even though he's primarily a war cartoonist and personally I don't actually appreciate looking at stuff relating to it, I thought he could capture faces so remarkably, it really brings them to life and there was just a standard face for thinking, every characters different with it's own personality.

Arnold Roth

I really like Arnold Roth's work because it felt lively and like there was a lot of personality in each piece, so it felt really individual and stood out because eventually when your looking at some many rooms of cartoon's and caricatures they do start to blend in your head.

Stanley Franklin

So Stanley Franklin is one of those cartoonist that 'preyed' on politicians, in particular the conservations and Thatcher, following quite controversial issues in the 80's. What I like is how they are kept simple, and in black and white which seems to emphasise the messages of like saying, look this is how it is really this is what the conservatives want in black and white. I think it's quite unfortunate how they all have to have a dark undertone though, yet this is what made them stand out to me.

Dudley D Watkins

Dudley D. Watkins was primarily a Beano artist who had done Desperate Dan comic strips they had in the museum what I found really interesting is how the comics start of being massive A1 sheets and that's how they get all the detail so they work larger and scale it down. I think I'd just never thought about this before, also I really enjoyed reading something light hearted after all the hard hitting stuff. There was loads on south africa and propaganda on the Aparthide which was really interesting especially because I spent last summer out there and Nelson Mandela had just passed, but this was quite a contrast.

The only women who featured that were actually decent artists in my eyes are then mentioned below. I don't know whether it says something about the industry or just about the times because Cartoons were big before the suffragettes so maybe they just weren't interested in it. Also to be archived in a museum you would really be a modern caricature artist, so it might be that. Another thing that struck me with the actual caricature exhibition was how mean some of it was about famous people and celebrities, but then I guess it wouldn't be as memorable if it was nice. But I just think i wouldn't want to make artwork if it was that mean, there's funny and then there's mean funny. Also Ralph Steadman was at this exhibition but his work at the retrospective in halifax was much more enthralling, so I'll talk about him in a separate most at some point.

Harriet Fish

What I liked most about Harriet Fish's work was the post modernist style of it, how it go quite easily sit on the front cover of the NEw Yorker. Unfortunately I was unable to find any decent representations of her work but what struck me most about it was the space around the characters and framing of each image, it made me really question how my eye flows through a piece and use of line and pattern to help frame the focal point.

Sarah Mcintyre

Here's an image of Sarah Mcintyre's work Vern and Lettuce, it stands out because it's a fun and simple design, there's not a great deal to add to that I just didn't want to let the female representation of the Cartoon museum down. Overall I really really enjoyed going and would definitely recommend it.

At the same time I would also like to add onto this post some information about an article I recently read by a Disney artist who works in the story department and he talks about what he looks for when he hires storyboard designers. The reason I add this is because when I read this a clarification in the difference of Comic artist and storyboarder was really nailed into me and although I knew it subconsciously I'd never really thought about it. How comics have a lot going on in each panel where as in a storyboard every key movement of action needs to be highlighted in its own panel the majority of the time and then it can be put together, to highlight the clarification of the narrative. I was quite surprised at the attention required in the clarity of narrative for a story artist and how high the level of skill is required how fast they have to work. It really doesn't sound like an easy job, but then again everyone would do it if it was.

http://sevencamels.blogspot.ca/2014/02/what-makes-good-story-portfoliostory.html