HA! Cartoons, Caricatures, and Satire from the Williams College Museum of Art will open on November 9, 2002 at the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA). The exhibition will address definitions of cartoons, caricatures, and satire by displaying specific examples of each genre. HA! Cartoons, Caricatures, and Satire will include approximately forty works from the permanent collection, mostly works on paper, along with some paintings and sculpture. It will highlight WCMA’s extraordinary collections of Rube Goldberg, Thomas Nast, and World War I posters and incorporate examples from the eighteenth century to the present. Works by William Hogarth, Francisco Goya, Honoré Daumier, Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman, and Tony Oursler will also be included. HA! Cartoons, Caricatures, and Satire will remain on view through March 30, 2003.

“We are asking viewers to participate and think about what visual humor is and how it can be varied,” says Nancy Mowll Mathews, curator of HA! Cartoons, Caricatures, and Satire. “Some images are intended to be an assault on the object and the viewer—successful visual humor evokes that response.”

The gallery will contain four different sections, showing cartoons, caricatures, and satire, along with art world humor. In this last section, the art world is satirized and famous works of art are recreated. For example, a parody by Roy Lichtenstein of Monet’s Rouen Cathedral and a parody by Thomas Nast of the statue The Greek Slave by Hiram Powers, which was one of the most famous sculptures of the nineteenth century, will be shown. Most of these works have been created by contemporary artists who are reconfiguring art history, giving it new meaning.

Two different kinds of cartoons appear in the exhibition: basic humorous cartoons and political cartoons. An example of the former is Andre Kertesz’s Melancholic Tulip, a ludicrous photograph of a tulip in a vase, in which the otherwise healthy flower is bent completely over and is pointing straight down. The majority of the political cartoons are by Nast and Rube Goldberg. Most of these pieces refer to actual political situations or events, while some others lampoon social situations.
The section on satire contains images that critique society, not individuals. These are images of vice or folly that are held up to ridicule. Many depict some kind of injustice, such as racism, socioeconomic differences, and gender inequities. For instance, Louis Faurer’s Untitled: Philadelphia, PA 1949 places a paralyzed beggar in front of the Broad Street Trust Company. Thomas Nast’s cover from Harper’s Weekly depicts a sweaty cartoonist in a cramped office, while on the wall behind him is an edict from his editor to “be funny.”

Some examples of the caricatures in HA! Cartoons, Caricatures, and Satire include a World War I poster urging people to “beat back the Hun,” which represents the German soldier as a hulking, evil monster. Celebrity caricatures include a silkscreen of Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol, and a photograph of contemporary artist Cindy Sherman dressed up as Marilyn Monroe.

HA! Cartoons, Caricatures, and Satire from the Williams College Museum of Art is organized by Nancy Mowll Mathews, Eugénie Prendergast Curator, with Ben Tilghman, Ellery Foutch, and Christa Carroll from the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art, Class of 2003.

The Williams College Museum of Art is open Tuesday through Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, from 1 to 5 p.m. Admission is free and the museum is wheelchair accessible.

Contact: Jonathan Cannon, Public Relations Coordinator
413.597.3178; WCMA@williams.edu