What is Cartoon Museum ?

hi

In 2006 a dedicated cadre of cartoonists, comic artists and collectors known as the Cartoon Art

Trust put their resources and heads together to create a permanent home for a collection of graphic and satirical art and commentary.

The resulting Cartoon Museum, housed in an old London dairy, is devoted to exploring the sometimes overlooked art form.

The museum has over 5,000 books, 4,000 comics and 1700 original strips,

graphic novels, animation and caricatures, continually updated and curated, with hundreds of examples always on rotating display.

Some past exhibits have been artist retrospectives (Ronald Searle, H.M Bateman and Ralph Steadman have all been the focus of past shows),

while others have been cross-cultural (“Dr. Who in Comics”, “Drunken Cartoonists and Drink in Cartoons”),

and many have highlighted historical and political cartooning (“Heckling Hitler: World War II in Cartoons & Comics”).

hello guys

The cartoon art form began with 'caricatura'

A caricature - from the Italian caricare, to load or exaggerate - is a drawing that gives weight to the most striking features of its subject for comic effect.

The great Italian masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Annibale Carracci and Gian Lorenzo Benini, all drew caricatures.

These were technical exercises in virtuosity with the aim of defining the essence of a person in a few deft strokes of the pen.

Many English artists looked to Italy for inspiration, but one man did not.  William Hogarth, painter and engraver, believed:

The collections of the Cartoon Museum, which is a block away from the much bigger and loftier British Museum, hardly fit the definition of propriety.

"Everything requisite to compleat the consummate painter or sculptor may [be had] with the utmost ease without going out of London".

It’s not the sort of place where you’d expect the Duke of Edinburgh (aka Prince Phillip) to show up, let alone cut a big red ribbon to kick things off.

Hogarth created a new form of picture-story, 'comic history-painting' full of 'characters', not 'caricatura', copies of nature, not exaggeration

But there he was on opening day as the museum’s royal patron, neatly pressed and ready to face whatever might be waiting inside to poke at him and the rest of the royal family.

Hogarth created a new form of picture-story, 'comic history-painting' full of 'characters', not 'caricatura', copies of nature, not exaggeration

It’s good to know that the prince is a strong supporter of the comic art form, well aware of its crucial place in history, culture, politics and social reform.

His 'modern moral subjects', that can be seen in The Harlot's Progress and The Rake's Progress, depict critical moments in life, in act and consequence.

And she might not admit it, but even the Queen probably had a subscription to Punch.

Time is represented in space, between and within each scene. It is for this reason that Hogarth is widely regarded as the father of British caricature, in spite of himself, and of the comic strip