Category Archives: Caricature and satire

Electroblock printing, with no electricity

John Leech (1817-1864), Contemplating a Day’s Fishing, Mr. Briggs Gets His Tackle in Order, and Trys the Management of His Running Line, ca. 1860. Watercolor. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2006.02345. sheet: 25 x 27.8 cm.

John Leech (1817-1864), Mr. Briggs & His Doings. Fishing (London, Bradbury & Evans [1860]). Electroblock print. Otto von Kienbusch Angling Collection Oversize 2003-0004F. sheet: 33 x 47 cm.

In the summer of 1862, an exhibition entitled “Sketches in Oil” was held at The Egyptian Hall on Piccadilly in London. Although the designs by John Leech (1817-1864) were fun to see (primarily cartoons for Punch), it was the reproduction process that drew insiders to the show.

The process, Electroblock Printing, had been developed to ingeniously enlarge and transfer images to canvas or lithographic stones or other mediums. Despite the name, the technique required no electricity. An impression was taken from the original wood blocks or other medium onto rubber (or a sheet of caoutchouc), which was then stretched to a larger size and re-transferred to another surface. If a smaller design is needed, the process can be reversed by stretching the rubber before the design is transferred and then, releasing it back to its former size. The hard part was, of course, keeping all sides in proportion.

Leech was quite taken by the process and used it for several books and exhibitions, hand painting the black outline once it had been transferred.

John Leech (1817-1864), Mr. Briggs & his doings. Fishing. by John Leech (London, Bradbury & Evans [1860]). Otto von Kienbusch Angling Collection Oversize 2003-0004F 33 x 47 cm.

John Leech (1817-1864), Mr. Briggs contemplates a day’s fishing and practises with his running tackle, 1860. Electroblock print. Gift of Carl Otto Kretzschmar von Kienbusch, Princeton University Class of 1906. Graphic Arts Collection GC164

John Leech (1817-1864), Contemplating a day’s fishing, Mr. Briggs gets his tackle in order, and trys the management of his running line, ca. 1860. Watercolor. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2006.02345 sheet 25 x 27.8 cm.

Glenn O. Coleman, Stuart Davis, and Henry Glintenkamp

Glenn O. Coleman (1881-1932), The Mirror, 1931. Lithograph printed by George Miller after Coleman’s 1927 painting. 3/50. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2008.00386.

In the fall of 1913, best friends Stuart Davis (1892-1964) and Henry J. Glintenkamp (1887-1946) left their Hoboken studio, grabbed the third musketeer Glen O. Coleman (1881-1932) and moved into a studio in the Miller Building, which was right across the street from the Lincoln Center Arcade (present day Julliard). The $40 rent was split three ways and the walls hung with their work recently included in the Armory Show. All three had agreed to join the staff at The Masses, where John Sloan was the new art editor and every spare minute was spent drawing. That December Davis turned 21, Glintenkamp was 26, and Coleman was 32 but lied about his age, passing as 26.

[Princeton’s Art Museum is fortunate to have one of Coleman’s lower east side street scenes merging architectural elements, which echoes the view in the mirror above. Instead of paintings, he called them Arrangements.

Glenn O. Coleman, City Street, ca. 1927 Gouache on off-white wove paper. Princeton University Art Museum. Laura P. Hall Memorial Collection x1946-172]

Glintenkamp, Coleman and Davis on their way in 1914. Reproduced in Rebecca Zurier, Art for the Masses, (1911-1917) (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1985). Firestone Library NC108 .Z87 1985.

The Lincoln Arcade, at Broadway and 66th Street, had become the new Bohemia with artists, musicians, and actors filling the halls. George Bellows lived on the top floor, sharing his space with Eugene O’Neill who was writing a play about a young man who wanted to be an artist. Robert Henri rented two rooms across the hall where he opened the Henri School of Art, with Coleman as class monitor (one of three or four jobs he maintained).

Downstairs Marcel Duchamp carried two large panes of glass into the studio he shared with Jean Crotti, and promised the finished work to Walter Arensberg, if he would cover their rent. Other residents at various times included Thomas Hart Benton, Samuel Halpert, Raphael Soyer, actor William Powell, and cartoonist Pat Sullivan (Felix the cat), among many others.

Davis, Coleman, and Glintenkamp worked together and played together, wandering through Chinatown, the Lower East Side, and across the Brooklyn Bridge as Henri instructed, in search of real life scenes for their paintings and prints. Note The Doctor’s saloon, a Park Row dive bar owned by Patrick “Burly” Bohan (1864–1931), drawn by both Coleman and Davis.

[above] Detail from Stuart Davis, Outside “The Doctor’s”, 1910. Watercolor. The Norma and Myron H. Goldberg Art Trust, reproduced in Stuart Davis A Catalogue Raisonne edited by Ani Boyajian and Mark Rutkoski (New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, 2007). Marquand Oversize ND237.D32 B692 2007q

[below] Glenn O. Coleman, Third Avenue from the portfolio Lithographs of New York, 1928. Printed by George Miller. Edition of 50.

Henry J. Glintenkamp (1887-1946), Limehouse Causeway, 1921. Linocut. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2007.01354

When the United States joined World War I in 1917, Davis received a deferment and worked in New York, Coleman was exempt (over the draft age), but Glinkenkamp, registered as a conscientious objector, fled to Mexico. Wherever he traveled he continued to paint and make prints featuring street life. Limehouse Causeway [seen above] is a street in East London that was the home to the original Chinatown of London.

Photograph of Robert Henri’s class in 1909 with Davis and Coleman in the back row with an unidentified woman between them (Glintenkamp was not in the class that year). Reproduced in Karen Wilkin, Stuart Davis (New York: Abbeville Press, 1987). Marquand Library Oversize ND237.D32 W53q

Lincoln Square Arcade on fire and firemen extinguish the fire in New York City. HD Stock Footage CriticalPast Published on Jun 19, 2014

Glenn Odem Coleman was born on July 18, 1881, in Springfield, Ohio, not 1887 as we all previously believed. This is the beginning of a longer piece on Coleman.

Monument to German Poetry

Daily Princetonian advertisement
Thomas Nast (1840-1902), Apollo Amusing the Gods [on the far right-center, Senator Carl Schurz as Mars, god of war] published in Harper’s Weekly November 16, 1872. Wood engraving. Graphic Arts Collection.

This weekend, I was asked “what did the German American politician Carl Schurz (seen here caricatured by Thomas Nast) and George Ehret, the owner of Hell-Gate Brewery, have in common?” The answer is love of the German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), author of Die Lore-Ley.

These two men joined forces in the 1890s to form the Heine Monument Association to bring the Lorelei Fountain, designed by Ernst Herter (1846-1917) in honor of Heinrich Heine, to New York City. Commissioned for but rejected by the city of Dusseldorf, Heine’s birthplace, Schurz and Ehret were confident they could raise the funds to move the 19-foot monument, sculpted in Tyrolean marble, to Grand Army Plaza in front of the Plaza Hotel, which was still under construction.

Funds were raised but the fountain was again rejected for this prominent site, next rejected by the city of Baltimore, and also rejected for a site on the north shore of Long Island. After several years in a warehouse, Heine’s monument was finally installed at 161st Street and the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, a largely German Jewish community, and dedicated on July 8, 1899.

Unfortunately over the next few years vandals cut off the heads and arms of all three mermaids that sit in the fountain bowl symbolizing poetry, satire, and melancholy. In 1940 the marble was painted black and the fountain moved to the farthest end of the Joyce Kilmer Park, where it was further destroyed with graffiti, trash, and erosion. The city offered to renovate the park if the monument was removed but local activists refused to give it up.

After years of being almost unrecognizable, funds were raised to repair and restore the fountain. The base was hollowed out and that marble used to re-sculpt heads and other body parts for the mermaids. On its centenary in 1999, Heine’s monument was rededicated in its original location, where it is enjoyed today.

Loreley
translated by Tr. Frank 1998

I cannot determine the meaning
Of sorrow that fills my breast:
A fable of old, through it streaming,
Allows my mind no rest.
The air is cool in the gloaming
And gently flows the Rhine.
The crest of the mountain is gleaming
In fading rays of sunshine.

The loveliest maiden is sitting
Up there, so wondrously fair;
Her golden jewelry is glist’ning;
She combs her golden hair.
She combs with a golden comb, preening,
And sings a song, passing time.
It has a most wondrous, appealing
And pow’rful melodic rhyme.

The boatman aboard his small skiff, –
Enraptured with a wild ache,
Has no eye for the jagged cliff, –
His thoughts on the heights fear forsake.
I think that the waves will devour
Both boat and man, by and by,
And that, with her dulcet-voiced power

How do you find the bad seeds in “La caricature”?

How do you find the bad seeds in the middle of the 10 volume run of La caricature? Answer: using the new index to the magazine, recently published by Alan Wofsy Fine Arts.

Auguste Bouquet. La Poire et ses Pépins. Paris: Chez Aubert, Galerie Véro-Dodat, 1833; in La Caricature: journal fondé et dirigé / par C. Philipon (Paris: Aubert, 1830-1835). 10 v. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize 2009-0240Q

La Caricature, 1830-1835: lithographies complètes: an illustrated catalogue raisonné of the lithographs / general editor and designer: Corine Labridy-Stofle (San Francisco: Alan Wofsy Fine Arts, 2017). Graphic Arts: Reference Collection (GARF) Oversize NC1498 .C3 2017q

Summary note:

La Caricature” was the 19th century equivalent and the precursor of Charlie Hebdo. The editor Charles Philipon employed the major satirical artists of the mid-19th century notably Daumier, Grandville, E. Forest, Charlet, Bellangé, Traviès, Raffet and Gavarni. It appeared for five years, between 1830-1835. The main subjects of the caricatures were Louis-Philippe and his entourage of July Monarchy politicians. Louis-Philippe, son of the Duke of Orléans, came to power after the 1830 Revolution as the Citizen King. However, he was not amused by the caricatures and once put Daumier in prison for 6 months, before suppressing the whole publication in 1835. He became more and more authoritarian and was finally forced to abdicate during the 1848 Revolution.

The plates are numbered 1-524, but approximately 62 are double sheets so there are actually 462 separate prints. Georges Vicaire catalogued the 251 issues and 524 plates in 1895. However they have never been reproduced in a catalogue, nor has there been an English language discussion or catalogue of the corpus of prints.

All of the works are described in French and English and are arranged in the order they appeared in the original publication. There is an index by artist and the catalogue by Georges Vicaire from 1895 is also included. Many of the artists contributed anonymously and were not identified by Vicaire but are now identified. Where there were not descriptions of the plates in the original publication (about 60 of the 462), this new edition now provides descriptions in French.

Typographic satire

Charles-Georges Doucet Coqueley de Chaussepierre (1711-1791), Le roué vertueux, poëme en prose en quatre chants, propre à faire, en cas de besoin, un drame à jouer deux fois par semaine. A Lauzanne (The Virtuous Rake, a Prose Poem in Four Odes, Suitable for a Drama Performed Twice a Week, if Necessary) ([Paris: Claude-Antoine Jombert], 1770). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017-in process

Both a lawyer and royal critic, Coqueley de Chaussepierre had a reputation as a comic. In 1770, he wrote Le Roué virtuous as a parody of the play L’Honnête criminel, ou l’amour filial (The Honest Criminal: Or, Filial Piety) by Charles-Georges Fenouillot de Falbaire (1727-1800). The bourgeois drama told the true story of Jean Fabre, who served a prison term for his religiously persecuted father. The public loved it but Coqueley was appalled and responded with this typographic joke.

Le Roue vertueux is composed exclusively of pieces of sentences, single words in no logical sequence, and the remaining punctuation. On the other hand, the first chapter or ode can be read: “Oh crime! Oh consoling horror! Oh peaceful agitation of the soul!”

The author wrote, “by putting nothing into it, we cannot criticize the style.” Later generations forgot about Fenouillot de Falbaire’s play and celebrated Coqueley de Chaussepierre’s typographic originality and the surrealist vision of the book.

The book is also innovative in the five plates that divide the chapters, engraved and aquatinted by or in the style of Jean-Baptiste Le Prince (1734-1781). It is thought to be one of the first books to include aquatints.

Satire on Perspective by Hogarth

Double checking our collection today to make sure we do hold the frontispiece engraving by William Hogarth (1697-1764) often forgotten by print curators. The scene offers many deliberate examples of confused and misplaced perspectives.

“Whoever makes a Design, without the Knowledge of Perspective, will be liable to such Absurdities as are shewn in this Frontispiece.”

William Hogarth, frontispiece for John Joshua Kirby (1716-1774), Dr. Brook Taylor’s method of perspective made easy, both in theory and practice … Being an attempt to make the art of perspective easy and familiar; to adapt it intirely [sic] to the arts of design; and to make it an entertaining study to any gentleman who shall chuse [sic] so polite an amusement (Ipswich: printed by W. Craighton, for the author, 1754). Rare Books (Ex) NA2710 .K5 1754

Grover Cleveland Caricature Revisited

With sincere thanks to Professor Anthony Chase, theater critic, columnist for Artvoice and The Public, and Assistant Dean in the School of Arts & Humanities, SUNY Buffalo State, we are reposting this lithograph cut from Judge magazine.

As Dr. Chase instructs, “If you look at the image, it clearly depicts President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) in blackface, with Senator Arthur Pue Gorman of Maryland and Secretary of State Thomas F. Bayard also in blackface, playing banjos. The title, Grand Opening of Cleveland, Gorman, and Bayard’s Minstrels is actually satirical and because Bayard died in 1889, I would expect that 1887 or 1888 is the more accurate date of this fantastic print.”

Once enlarged, the names of each politician active during Cleveland’s presidency can be seen on their collars. On the right:

John Griffin Carlisle (1834-1910) served as the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1883 to 1889 and was a leader of the conservative wing of the party.

Henry Watterson (1840-1921) was a United States journalist and editor for the Louisville Courier-Journal. He also served part of one term in the United States House of Representatives as a Democrat.

Joseph Clay Stiles Blackburn (1838-1918) was a Democratic Representative and Senator from Kentucky.

William Crowninshield Endicott (1826-1900) served as Secretary of War in Grover Cleveland’s Administration.

Hugh McLaughlin (1827-1904) was the head of the Democratic Party in Brooklyn, New York.

On the left:
Arthur Pue Gorman (1839-1906) was a United States Senator from Maryland, serving from 1881 to 1899 and from 1903 to 1906. He was a prominent leader of the Democratic Party.

Samuel Jackson Randall (1828-1890) was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, serving as the 29th Speaker of the House and was twice a contender for his party’s nomination for President of the United States.

Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar (1825-1893) was a United States Representative and Senator, serving as United States Secretary of the Interior in the first administration of Cleveland, as well as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Samuel Sullivan “Sunset” Cox (1824-1889) represented both Ohio and New York in the United States House of Representatives. In 1885, Cleveland appointed him U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, which last one year. Cox was again elected to Congress representing New York and served until his death.

Abram Stevens Hewitt (1822-1903) was chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1876 to 1877, U.S. Congressman, and a mayor of New York.
Grover Cleveland is at the center.

The artist is Bernhard Gillam (1856-1896) who provided cartoons to the New York Graphic, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, Harper’s Weekly, and Puck Magazine. He later became director-in-chief for Judge, where he continued to draw caricatures of American politicians. Each one was lithographed in four or five colors by the New York firm of Sackett & Wilhelms.

Bernard Gillam (1856-1896), Grand Opening of Cleveland, Gorman and Bayard’s Minstrels at Washington, no date [1880s]. Color lithograph. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2012.02692

Tracts and Satires on King George IV

This note was published in Notes and Queries (October 1885) by Alfred Wallis:

A Catalogue of William Hone’s Publications is appended to The Political Showman at Home, 1821. This is a tolerably full list, and others may be found at the end of his various tracts. Pamphlets similar to those of William Hone were published about that period by Dolby, Fairburn, Robins, Johnstone, Benbow, &c. The brothers George Cruikshank and Isaac Robert Cruikshank found plenty of employment in drawing caricatures for these publications, and the work of the two artists is so much the same in style and manner at this epoch that one finds some difficulty in assigning the specimens to which no initials are affixed.

I believe that George Cruikshank alone illustrated Hone’s publications and Robert Cruikshank those of Dolby; but both the brothers worked for Fairburn and for Robins & Co. More information upon this subject will be found in the various biographies and bibliographies produced since the death of George Cruikshank. The artist is said to have asserted his claim to be considered the originator of some of Hone’s most successful publications, especially to the Bant Note—not to be imitated; it is, however, tolerably certain that this claim, in common with the pretence that every author with whom Cruikshank had relations “wrote up to” his designs, must be referred to a morbid exaggeration of his characteristic vanity.

The idea of publishing such a caricature, in the form of a bank-note, was attributed to Hone in all the public prints; and as it only illustrated an extended pamphlet “by the author of The Political House that Jack Built,” dealing with “the effects on society of the bank-note system and payments in gold,” the Examiner was most likely right in saying, “This bank-note is by Mr. Hone, and ought to make the hearts of the bank directors (if they have hearts) ache at the sight.” Some of Hone’s political tracts are common, others are very difficult of procurement in a perfect state; for instance, the step-ladder is rarely to be found with The Queen’s Matrimonial Ladder. A complete set is a valuable possession to the student of contemporary life and manners.

Multiple copies of these and other rare tracts are held in various collections at Princeton, including this set in the Graphic Arts Collection given by Richard W. Meirs, Class of 1888. Although several sets are bound together, each title can be searched separately in http://catalog.princeton.edu. Such as:
A Groan from the Throne (London: Printed and published by John Fairburn, 1820). A satire in verse on King George IV, with woodcut title vignette by George Cruikshank. GA copy: No. 7 of a volume of pamphlets. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Cruik 1817.28. Gift of Richard W. Meirs, Class of 1888

Satire on gout continued

Dissertationes de laudibus et effectibus podagrae quas sub auspiciis… ([Brün?]: no publisher, [1715]). Illustrated by Johann Georg Gutwein. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process

At the back of our newly acquired satire on gout is a proclamation, making fun of scholarly diplomas and professional certificates. This one congratulates the man who has acquired gout. Our colleague recently did a rough translation of the text, which is too good not to share.

Translation of Podagra Decree:

We, by just misfortune deputy-general or governor, also at present delegated representative of the world-renowned monarch Podagra, the rightfully elected sovereign of those whose human bodies, through immoderate wrath, too ardent love, and superfluous wine, &c. Do present to all faithful members of our upright society, first of all our greetings and good will, and thereby give you to understand, how credible and very disagreeable it has seemed to us, that very many people are usurping our ancient and legitimately acquired privileges and liberties, illegitimately and presumptuously, by lying in bed – under the pretext of Spanish cramps, foot-corns, magpie or hen eyes, erysipelas, gall-foot, strain or sprain, also pain in the limbs, rheumatism, tumors, fire-plaint, gout, cold and hot fluxes, heating and freezing of the balls of the feet and of the toes, faulty clipping of the toenails, rupture of the roots of the toenails, tight shoes and boots (to say nothing of other fictitious diseases) – by lying in bed, that is, for four, five, six, and even more weeks out of the year, in the greatest discomfort, forming the most repulsive facial expressions and loathsome gesticulations, and afterwards tending to their bodies with light food and drink, and making use of felt boots, open-toed shoes, crutches, sedan chairs, litters, cushions, solutions of salt in scented waters, known as “coolness” – – – and by the light of the new moon, with special ceremonies and prescribed bleedings, taking other medicines as well:

Meanwhile they express themselves with the greatest impatience, ire, scolding, cursing, rapping, flinging [of objects], gnashing of teeth, unbearable screaming, with outpourings of desperate utterances, but especially also an extraordinary fear, indeed even sometimes because they notice a feeble little fly advancing towards them in bed; no less do they, when walking in the street, seek out the broadest stones [to walk upon]; and in all things they show themselves to us in the same way. Although all these are Podagrian qualities and characteristics, these people are nevertheless unwilling to confess to it [their true condition], but rather put a brave face on matters in a stiff-necked way, admitting nothing; On the contrary, they proceed against us with outrage and insults, ashamed of our world-renowned name, refusing to be incorporated into our praiseworthy society, and to remit the proper yearly shilling or membership dues. But because this runs immediately counter to our queen and to her dear sister Chyragra [gout of the hand], as co-regent in honor and respect, and as such can in no way be thought to be permitted any longer:

So do we specially, by published command, hereby amicably call on all our faithful members (for the maintenance and propagation of our highly respectable Podagrian Society) to discreetly keep a watchful eye on those recently afflicted and overstimulated and practicing under false pretexts, so that the names of these people, whoever they are, may be made known to us and to our most highly privileged chamber, without fail, as we have charged our expediter, von Polsterberg, with all cases. Those, however, who show themselves to be disobedient in this matter, we command earnestly, and on penalty of 10 pounds of flint-oil (of which [?] any member of our well ordered chamber suffering at any time from the aforementioned infirmities, shall be obliged to be given over to be shod with iron nails or with shoes lined with hedgehog-hide) that they should report to our Cripple-Chancellery within 14 days at the most after being accused, to register there as is befitting, to pay the usual fine, and then to swear an oath of allegiance, and according to the nature of the qualities taken up by the charge then to be discussed, also after the accomplishment of such tasks as are to be performed by the youngest member, they shall duly receive and take charge of the box with all its appurtenances, according to ancient custom and heritage; thereby you will prove your obedience and indebtedness, whereas we on the other hand make you participants in all our most highly bestowed privileges and liberties, and remain, with special grace, well disposed towards you.

Given in our old New-City Featherburg the first day of the New Moon, in the current year.

Bernhard Ouch-Woe, Count of Crippledorf, Baron of Plaint-Feet, Hereditary Lord of Crutchberg, Governor. Screambinus Suffer-House, of Painfield and Ach-House, Secretary. Anxietus of Cushionberg, Expediter.

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