by Mike Rhode
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fig. 1 self-portrait
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Ralph Steadman: And Another Thing. Sadie Williams (Ralph
Steadman Art Collection director) and Andrea Lee Harris (exhibition coordinator).
Washington, DC: American University Museum at the Katzen. September 7 –
December 8, 2024. https://www.american.edu/cas/museum/2024/and-another-thing-steadman.cfm
Ralph Steadman (fig. 1) is a British cartoonist and
illustrator who has been active since the late 1950s but broke through in
America with his collaborations with Hunter Thompson for Rolling Stone
magazine in the early 1970s. He is a trenchant and engaged observer of
politics, but also illustrates classic books and alcoholic beverage labels. His
distinctive style, augmented with watercolor splotches, is immediately
recognizable to those who know his work. One pleasure of this exhibit is seeing
earlier works, before that style solidified. When he begins working in color regularly
on a large scale, his artwork is amazing, and it is fascinating to see
originals of material usually meant for smaller illustration reproductions.
This exhibit was conceived as a follow-up
to 2018’s successful Ralph Steadman: A Retrospective (see https://www.american.edu/cas/museum/2018/ralph-steadman-retrospective.cfm
). The first exhibit was curated by London’s Cartoon Museum’s Anita O'Brien.
This one is curated by Steadman’s daughter, Williams, and Harris, a
professional exhibit designer. Steven Heller[i] asked about the creation
of this exhibit which included “149 artworks and memorabilia,”
Heller: Sadie, as
co-curator and also Ralph’s daughter, how did this exhibition come together?
Williams: Between
2016 and 2019 we were touring a retrospective of 110 original artworks to
venues in the USA, including the Society of Illustrator in New York and the
Jordan Schnitzer Art Museum in Eugene, OR. It was incredibly well-received, but
in 2020 the pandemic meant we had to cancel the last two venues. That
exhibition was sponsored by United Therapeutics because their incredible CEO,
Martine Rothblatt, is a fan and has become a friend over the years.
Early in 2023,
Martine said she would like to see a new exhibition put together and that, once
again, United Therapeutics would sponsor it. It was great to assemble the team
again including co-ordinator Andrea Harris (she’s a force of nature), and start
booking in venues. It is so special to launch it at the AU [American
University] Museum, where we had such an amazing reception in 2017, and also
get the Bates College Museum of Art in Maine into the schedule, as that was one
of the venues we had to cancel.
I recommend reading the rest of the
interview to understand more of the thinking that went into this exhibit. As
with the earlier show, an excellent catalogue is available https://www.ralphsteadmanshop.com/products/and-another-thing-catalogue-soft-case
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fig. 2
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fig. 3
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To reach the exhibit on the upper third
floor of the museum, one either takes an extremely long set of stairs (they run
the entire length of museum), or a nondescript elevator. This is not a metaphor,
but it does point out a couple of problems with this otherwise excellent
exhibit. The Katzen building, of which the museum is a small part of acting as
an endcap at an entrance to the campus, is a brutalist concrete building that
is really designed for large pieces of modern art, and not for a paper art
show. The walls are curved and very high and the building is starkly white. If
you brave the steps, which I believe is the intended way to approach it, at the
top you were greeted with five pieces (three are clearly labelled reproductions)
from Steadman's most famous collaboration, Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas (fig. 2).
A small caricature sculpture of Hunter Thompson was also displayed here and
appeared out of place… so much so that I paid no attention to it, but literally
as I was writing this review, an edition of 25 reproductions of it went on sale
for £975 each. (fig. 3)
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fig. 4
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However, if you take the elevator, you
come out and what appears to be the back of the exhibit, facing Steadman’s
student and early work (fig. 4). The other problem illuminated by either of these
approaches is that none of the artwork’s groupings was labeled and it was left
to the viewer to deduce where they might fit in his career. The building
complicates this because there are no clear demarcation lines and very few
walls. If you did go up the steps and see the five pieces at the top, you then
had to turn about 60° to your left to actually enter the exhibit. (fig. 5)
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fig. 5
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And then you’re
faced with a choice. There were walls to either side of you, as well as a right-angled
temporary wall in front of you. If you're an American who’s old enough to drive,
do you head to the wall on your right? Or do you follow the wall on your left
because you’re standing closest to it? Or do you go up the middle to the two
painted temporary walls? If you chose to follow the driving conventions, you
ended up at a part of the exhibit (fig. 6) that covers Steadman’s children's books, as
well as other books such as Animal Farm and Alice in Wonderland, (fig. 6a)
and his work with journalist Will Self. Several of these children's books on
the long, curved wall and the temporary wall facing it, such as Little
Prince and the Tiger Cat (1967), are done in styles at one would not have
normally recognized as his work ((fig. 6b, fig. 6c).
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fig. 6 | fig. 6a
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fig. 6b
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fig. 6c
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If you went along the other wall (fig. 7), you saw book
illustrations for Treasure Island, Fahrenheit 451, The Curse of
Lono, and I, Leonardo. The color artwork was absolutely enthralling
especially on projects he obviously loved such as the Leonardo book. This section
then included more Will Self collaborations, and then an exhibit statement from
the curators (fig. 8e). This statement should have been placed both at the main entrance
by the stairs, and on the wall by the elevator. As it was, it was in the middle
of the exhibit in about as nondescript spot as could have been chosen.
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| (fig. 7) |
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fig. 7a
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In the middle, between the two book
sections, on blue-painted temporary walls (fig. 8) was political material. One wall was
caricatures of American presidents (and John McCain) (fig. 8a) while the other contained issues
that caught Steadman’s attention such as famine in Africa or American aggression (figs. 8b-d).
The people I saw the exhibit with, experts on other types of comics, were
particularly unhappy with the lack of labelling of the subjects, which have
faded in memory as political cartoons or caricatures frequently do.
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fig. 8b
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fig. 8c
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fig. 8d
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fig. 8e - Exhibit statement
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As noted, on the other side of one of the
temporary walls were children's book illustrations (fig 6c), while on the reverse of the
American president’s section was early commercial material. Most appears to be
from fairly early in Steadman’s career when he was working with Private Eye
magazine (fig. 9) and doing far more work in straight black and white, without the
colored ink spots and splotches he would become known for. If he had continued
in this style, my personal feeling is that he would be far less known and
appreciated than he is today. Facing this temporary wall were portraits or
caricatures commonly of British subjects (figs. 10, 11), that blended into other commercial
work and ended with his recent work for the Flying Dog Brewery (fig. 12). An exhibit case
at the end of this section shows off many of the commercial pieces he's done as
well as some tools of his trade such as photographic references, 1970s
newsprint editions of Rolling Stone, a horse racing sporting magazine, a
Breaking Bad Blu-ray cover, and the like (fig. 13). He has had a long career and
continually re-invented himself (there are two NFTs in the show but they are repurposed from existing art, fig. 14), but at his
heart, Steadman is always a commercial illustrator.
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fig. 9 Private Eye pages
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fig. 11
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fig. 12 beer label
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fig. 13
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fig. 14 - Trough of Disillusionment NFT
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The rest of the exhibit is in what, on a
different floor, is a separate room. On this level, it is not walled off, yet
functions as a distinct space. As noted, if you exited the elevator here, you
would see Steadman’s early work including samples clipped from newspapers of
his Teeny pocket comic (aka comic panel) and school drawings including
dinosaurs in a museum. The two anatomical drawings are highlighted as being the
beginning of a theme that runs through his works to the current day. One
cartoon in particular is shown twice as it shows how he decided to stop using a
typical British non-de-plume of Stead, in favor of signing his full name. (figs. 15-18)
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fig. 15 Teeny pocket comics
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fig. 16
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fig. 17
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fig. 18
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There was also an exhibit case in the side
area with other tools of his trade -- lots of pens and material from his
archives -- as well as three pieces of jewelry which, as befits a commercial
artist, will be for sale in a new venture that he has arranged with the jewelry
maker. (fig. 19) The final corner nook of the exhibit features some of his environmental
work done in collaboration with Ceri Levy on endangered or extinct (but also non-existent)
birds and mammals. (fig. 20) “Paranoids,” a very small selection of manually manipulated
Polaroid prints (fig. 21) showed an interesting experiment that probably had no real
future or practical application, but was remarked upon by some viewers when I
walked past. There was also a very long shelf, a pre-existing feature of the building’s
architecture that overlooks the atrium/stairway, that has an example of about
15 or 20 of the variety of books he's worked on over his career. (figs. 22-24)
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fig. 19
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fig. 21
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fig. 22
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fig. 23
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fig. 24
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fig. 25 - overview facing backward into the main exhibit
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fig. 26 - Thompson statue
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The exhibit, with a wealth of original
art, was marvelous, but would have benefited from a firmer hand curating it (or
perhaps one less personally embedded in his life) and better labeling.
Frequently the viewer was left to deduce what part of Steadman’s career one was
viewing, and how important that particular art work/style was to his whole
career. If one read all the individual object labels, you would have a good
overview of his career, but that is a very demanding way to see an exhibit. Actively
working to bookend the previous exhibit also meant curatorial choices were made
that might have benefited from additional labels or text. In the Heller
interview, Williams said, “Anita O’Brien did such an amazing job with the
original exhibition that I used that as a template. I am quite practical in
these things, and I find having something visual to work with very helpful. I
literally took one of the old catalogues from the last exhibition and replaced
like with like, sticking in print-outs of pieces to replace the existing ones
with. Then I pulled in a few additional pieces to bulk out some areas, like the
writers, and the presidents of the United States.” In some ways, the exhibit
probably catered too much to those with pre-existing knowledge of Steadman’s
art and career. Since so much of his work is commercial illustration, more explanations
of the original art on display versus the final product of a book, or
advertisement, or magazine illustration would have been useful. However, this
was an exhibit of excellent art by a long-standing master cartoonist and
illustrator, and it was a true pleasure to see these treasures of original art.
The fact that there is a catalogue for the show is a significant added benefit.
I for one would be pleased to see this exhibit duology turn into a trilogy.
Published concurrently on ComicsDC and IJOCA blogs.
Comics Sans Frontières: 
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