International Journal of Comic Art blog: New York City

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Thursday, March 12, 2020

Exhibition in Photos: Dominique Corbasson: Paris-Londres-New York

Dominique Corbasson: Paris-Londres-New York. Huberty & Breyne Gallery. Brussels. March 13-April 18, 2020.

Over the next month, the Huberty & Breyne Gallery is hosting a selling exhibition that doubles as a retrospective of the work of French painter and illustrator Dominique Corbasson, who passed away too soon on 21 February 2018. Though Corbasson illustrated children's books and even produced her own comic, her international recognition was earned by her uniquely stylized and idealized cityscapes that were often illustrated on paper using pencils or acrylics.

The poster image for the Corbasson retrospective.

The basic exhibition information that immediately greets visitors upon entering the gallery.

The selection of cityscapes for this exhibition were organized across three separate but contiguous rooms within the gallery, with each room displaying the drawings and paintings associated with an assigned city.

Upon entry into the gallery, the exhibition kicks off immediately with the New York pieces.

On display to the immediate right of the gallery entrance is this New York Quadtych: (starting top left, clockwise) Noon, Morning, Afternoon, Evening.

The New York pieces at the entryway of the gallery

432 Park Avenue

Guggenheim I, III, IV

NYC (left) and Fog in New York, displayed

The largest space located in the center of the gallery was reserved for a nice selection of Corbasson's drawings and paintings on Paris, which arguably represent her most recognizable work. As a native Parisian, Corbasson was familiar enough with these iconic locations that they were typically drawn from the perspective that she saw while riding around the city on her bicycle.

The back wall of the Paris room

From top left, clockwise: Esplanade du Louvre; Tenon-Gambetta, Le Carousel, and La Maison Rose.

Rue des Perhamps (left) and Pont des Arts sur le Louvre

The front and right walls of the Paris room

Place des Vosges (left) and La coulée vert

The arrangement of Paris drawings and paintings on the right wall of the Paris room.

The arrangement of Paris drawings and paintings on the front wall of the Paris room.

The left and front walls of the Paris room.

The arrangement of Paris drawings and paintings on the left wall of the Paris room.

Moving forward from the Paris room opens out towards the back of the gallery where the London pieces are arranged and displayed.

Sunny Winter (left) and Savile Row

The passage to the London room as seen from the frontier of the Paris Room.

The front and right walls of the London Room.

These six pieces are acrylic paintings on a wood base.

The British Museum

The final London piece: Charing Cross

The gift shop area (which is located between the New York space and the Paris room) offered signed and numbered seriegraphs and exhibition catalogs for sale. Huberty & Breyne Gallery published their own exhibition catalog, limited to 400 copies, which reproduces all of the pieces on display.

The gift shop area at Huberty & Breyne Gallery.

The exhibition catalog (left) and a complete collection of all of Corbasson's Paris work, originally published in 2016.

The exhibition does a nice job of presenting Corbasson's cityscapes in a fashion that accentuates their individual qualities when they are presented in a cumulative collected fashion. Her expressive use of color coupled with the weight of her crayon lines and brushstrokes really help each piece stand out against the wide open and white walls of the gallery. With spring around the corner, Corbasson's colorful evocations of these idealized cities provide a pleasant distraction from the realities of the city with an effortless simplicity that compliments her legacy.

The press communique for the show, as well as all of the works on display for Paris-Londres-New York are available for closer inspection at the website of the Huberty & Breyne Gallery.

-Nick Nguyen

All photos taken by Nick Nguyen

Thursday, January 9, 2020

Exhibit review: Marie Duval: Laughter in the First Age of Leisure

Promotional image provided by R. Sabin

Marie Duval: Laughter in the First Age of Leisure. Simon Grennan, Roger Sabin and Julian Waite. New York: Society of Illustrators’ Museum of Illustration. January 7-March 4, 2020.

The Society of Illustrators’ Museum of Illustration is currently hosting an exhibit devoted to the works of Victorian cartoonist, Marie Duval. Duval pursued several careers during her life, including actress, author and cartoonist, but this exhibit focuses on this last pursuit, which made Duval one of the early female cartoonists in Europe and an important figure in the field. Born Isabelle Émilie de Tessier, Duval worked during the 1860’s to 1880’s using a number of different noms de plume, including both male and female names.^{^[1]} In part for this reason, her work has not always had the scrutiny and study of which it may be worthy. This touring exhibit, which was created by Central Saint Martins and the University of Chester with additional support from the London Library and the British Library, seeks to introduce her work to a wider audience.

Featuring slightly more than two dozen examples of Duval’s cartoons, the exhibit offers a nice overview of her work. Much of Duval’s art appeared in a publication called Judy or the London Serio-Comic Journal,^{^[2]} and more than half of the pieces in the exhibit are taken from this publication. The examples of her cartoons for Judy show Duval’s style, which often featured exaggerated features and expressions on human and animal characters alike. Her works touch on several topics, mostly related to trends and social commentary and almost entirely from a humorous point of view. As an example, one of her comics entitled “Rinkophobia: A Passing Fancy” pokes fun at roller skating and the injuries it can cause. Though the vast majority of the works are done in black and white, there are two color works included in the exhibit.

Perhaps of greatest note amongst her works are her Ally Sloper cartoons. These comic strips gained a great deal of popularity and she produced enough to be published in several volumes.^{^[3]} The exhibit includes several examples of these works which show the types of subject she covered in the strips and how the style of her art for these strips differed from her other artwork and, to some degree, from one another.

The exhibit is primarily made up of reproductions, but most are done in a manner that makes the artwork’s place in the larger publication clear. Unfortunately, the exhibit does not have clear labels for each of the works, which would be helpful to offer more context and also to make it easier for researchers to find the items for further research. In addition, though some of the items are dated, several are not, making it difficult to place them in the arc of her career without outside information. However, despite these limitations, the exhibit is a nice introduction to the work of a Victorian cartoonist who likely deserves greater acclaim than she has received to date.

The exhibit and the related Marie Duval Archive (http://www.marieduval.org/), which was created by the same group of scholars, were made possible by an Arts and Humanities Research Council UK grant. For those interested in learning more about Duval, the Archive is an invaluable resource, which provides some basic background information about her and provides access to high resolution scanned reproductions of over 1,000 of her pieces ranging from 1869 to 1885 with more to be added in the future.^{^[4]} An additional resource is the book Marie Duval, edited by Simon Grennan, Roger Sabin and Julian Waite (Myriad, 2018, £19.99, ISBN 978-0-9955900-9-0). The exhibit was previously displayed at Berlin Illustrative and Guildhall Library.

Carli Spina

(This review was written for the International Journal of Comic Art 22:1, but this version appears on the IJOCA website on January 9 2020, while the exhibit is still open for viewing.)

^{^[1]} Simon Grennan, Roger Sabin and Julian Waite. “About Marie Duval.” The Marie Duval Archive. http://www.marieduval.org/about-marie-duval.

^{^[2]} Ibid.

^{^[3]} Ibid.

^{^[4]} Simon Grennan, Roger Sabin and Julian Waite. “Drawings by Year.” The Marie Duval Archive. http://www.marieduval.org/drawings.

Friday, December 14, 2018

Exhibit Review: Underground Heroes: New York Transit in Comics

Underground Heroes: New York Transit in Comics. Jodi Shapiro. New York: New York Transit Museum. June 21, 2018-March 17, 2019. https://www.nytransitmuseum.org/

(all photographs are courtesy of the Museum and images of the exhibit are by Filip Wolack)

Though the New York Transit Museum may not be an immediately obvious location for a comics exhibition, it is currently home to one that looks at the way that New York City transit has been represented in comics through the years. Highlighting works going back to the 1880’s, the exhibition includes many types of comics, including political cartoons, superhero comic books from major publishers, and sequential art that was created specifically for the MTA Arts & Design, which is a program of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to commission art for the area’s transportation systems.

Much of the exhibit is in the form of reproductions mounted on foam core, but this is far from all that is on display. There are dozens of individual comic book issues to show specific examples of the New York City transit trains and stations across the years, including very recent examples such as 2017 issues of Marvel’s The Unbelievable Gwenpool that show creatures in MTA stations. Though Marvel and DC are very well-represented in the exhibit, as might be expected, other publishers and artists are not overlooked. Jodi Shapiro, the Associate Curator at the Museum and the curator of this exhibition, notes that “the show required that we include as many different styles of art and storytelling as possible, and we wanted to feature diversity in both characters and creators. The most important thing was to have good and compelling work that would draw people to visit the exhibit. The show has a whole range of material from the straight-ahead superhero stories, to some very abstract conceptual work. There are some pieces that have a lot of text, and some that are wordless. Some work is very traditional, and some is highly experimental.” Comics experts will find plenty of works that they immediately recognize. An issue of Will Eisner’s The Spirit from 1951 is on hand to show how Eisner incorporated the local trains into his own work, and an example of Dave Berg’s satirical “The Lighter Side...” comic strip for MAD Magazine that focuses on commuting is included in a section focused on commuter woes. But there are also enough unusual items that most visitors will probably find works they have not seen before. In fact, Concetta Bencivenga, Director of the Museum pointed out that many of the artists featured in the exhibit had told museum staff that their works have never been featured in a curated show before.

The exhibition does a good job of representing a diversity of types of comics and of authors, but there is an unsurprising focus on creators who lived and worked in New York City. Original artwork by some well-known artists are on display, including a piece by Jillian Tamaki that was commissioned by MTA Arts & Design, drawings of New York City subway stations by Julia Wertz, and comic strips created by Stan Mack. This brings a local flavor to the exhibit that is particularly fitting, given its location, and highlights the way that local artists have been influenced by the same public transportation system that all New Yorkers use on a regular basis. In addition to paying particular attention to local creators, the exhibit also looked within the Museum’s existing collections for content as well. Shapiro said that “The Transit Museum’s archives are vast, and our job is to make it publicly accessible, so we wanted to include works of [art] from our collection, including materials from Amelia Opdyke Jones. She had a long career in comics and in illustration, but the most recognizable work she created as a staff artist for the Transit Authority was called the Subway Sun, a courtesy campaign that was developed to be posted in buses and subway cars.” Beyond her work for public transportation, Jones was the creator of the syndicated comic strip “The Young Idear.” Including pieces by artists who may be primarily known as comics creators gives local visitors a chance to understand artwork that they may have seen on their commute in a different way and also offers comics experts a chance to see works by established comics artists that they may not have previously considered.

In curating the exhibit, Shapiro did extensive research and worked closely with comics creators and experts alike. She also had the materials reviewed by two comics experts, Karen Green, who is the Curator of Comics and Cartoons and a librarian at Columbia University, and Charles Brownstein, who is the Executive Director of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF). While the content in the exhibit is interesting and well-researched, unfortunately, the labels on the items do not always include sufficient details to allow visitors to easily find copies of the works on display if they wanted to further examine them. For example, many labels only have the name, author and year, without month or issue number available. It would have been nice if there was a bit more information about each item on display, perhaps even including additional analysis. Overall though, this is a minor quibble given the breadth of content that is on display.

Though the exhibit is only one part in a museum with many different exhibits, it includes over one hundred pieces in total and represents works from more than 120 artists. It is an interesting look at how comics and transit have intersected over the years and it will likely have you noticing public transit in comics in a whole new way. Originally, the exhibit was scheduled to close on January 6, 2019, but it has been extended until March 17, 2019, in part because they are hoping to have more visitors from the comics community see it before it closes. The museum is hosting a range of programs to complement the exhibition, featuring Shapiro, comic artists, scholars, and experts.

Carli Spina

(This review was written for the International Journal of Comic Art 20:2, but this version appears on the IJOCA website on December 14, 2018, while the exhibit is still open for viewing.)

Newspaper Comics Council ad campaign, 1962 [Walt Kelly (left) holding a Pogo strip]

New York Transit Museum NYCTA Photo Unit Collection

Newspaper Comics Council ad campaign, 1962 [Milt Caniff (right) holding a Steve Canyon strip]

New York Transit Museum NYCTA Photo Unit Collection


*The Vault of Horror* No. 30, 1950 Art by Johnny Craig Vault of Horror and the EC Logo are trademarks and the displayed artwork is copyrighted material owned by William M. Gaines, Agent, Inc. All Rights Reserved.