Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival – The Exhibitions!
October 20, 2020 in Comment, Events, General
Exhibition poster cartoon by festival organiser © Roger Penwill.
Lovely to see a REAL cartoon exhibition on REAL walls! Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival may have been cancelled earlier in the year but the accompanying ’20-20 Vision’ show lives on at the wonderful Bear Steps Gallery in Shrewsbury. It opened this week and features 70 cartoons by 43 cartoonists including Steve Bell, The Surreal McCoy, Pete Dredge, Jonathan Cusick, Tat Effby, Wilbur Dawbarn, Ralph Steadman, Royston Robertson, John Landers, Steve Best, Jeremy Banx, Kathryn Lamb, Sarah Boyce, Tim Harries, Glenn Marshall, Andy Davey, Clive Goddard & Zoom Rockman.
The Bear Steps Gallery, a fifteenth century restored building. Photo © Glenn Marshall.
There is also a bonus exhibition in the upstairs gallery of cartoons responding to the coronavirus pandemic.
Photo of the team hanging the artwork last Sunday © Tony Clarkson.
The PCO blog featured some of the cartoons selected for the ‘Vision’ exhibition earlier in the year and you can see them here.
Another photo of the hang © Tony Clarkson.
Here is a selection from the ‘No One Saw It Coming’ coronavirus cartoons display.
Ralph Steadman did a HUGE painting. A video of him in action as he creates it is displayed next a much smaller print of the work.
Cartoon © Ralph Steadman.
Cartoon © Peter Schrank
Poignant cartoon by Peter Schrank about isolation, particularly for the elderly and vulnerable during lock down.
Cartoon © Steve Bell.
Unsurprisingly Boris featured heavily in the exhibition. This by The Guardian’s Steve Bell…
Cartoon © Andy Davey.
…and another from Andy Davey.
Cartoon © Chris Williams
…and yet another. This by ‘Dink’
Cartoon © Grizelda.
Over-indulgence cartoon from Grizelda…although some of us didn’t drink sensibly even before the pandemic.
Caricature © Jonathan Cusik.
Fine caricature of Chris ‘Now Go Wash Your Hands’ Whitty by Jonathan Cusick.
Cartoon © Pete Dredge.
Back to school with Dredge.
Cartoon © Ken Pyne.
Ken Pyne takes us on holiday….remember those?
Cartoon © Royston Robertston…and Phil.
Pirate material by Rrrrroyston Rrrrrobertson.
Cartoon © Henny Beaumont.
No exhibition on this theme would be complete without a wave to the super-spreader himself. Henny here channeling Hokasai.
Cartoon © The Surreal McCoy.
Finally as we head into the second wave this cartoon by the Surreal McCoy seems perfectly timed.
Through the exhibition run we’ll be publishing more of the ‘No One Saw it Coming’ exhibits across the vast PCO media empire so keep an eye on our Facebook (@UKProfessionalCartoonists), Twitter (@procartoonists) and Instagram (@procartoonists) feeds.
For more Covid ‘fun’ we published a selection of infectious laughter earlier in the year here.
The exhibition at Bear Steps runs until 31st October and the gallery is open 10.00am – 4.0pm daily. (Covid measures at the gallery: hand sanitiser at the door, 6 visitors at a time with an eye kept on flow, in one door out through another. Face coverings to be worn)
Puppet caricature © Jonathan Cusik.
Here’s a fine video of the cartoon-form Mayor of Shrewsbury Philip Gillam introducing the show.
Congrats to all those involved from Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival and Bear Steps Gallery for putting the shows together in tricky times. Fingers tentatively crossed that the festival can return in all its glory next Spring!
- Thanks to festival committee member Sarah Knap for extra info in this post.
by Glenn Marshall
Draw The Coronavirus – The eBook!
December 17, 2020 in Comment, Events, General, News
The ‘Great’ Glenn Marshall (WINNER of Draw The Coronavirus competition) writes:
Many cartoonists, illustrators, artists and fly-by-nights have been taking refuge from the cruel world by joining in Martin Rowson’s regular cartoon challenges. He sets a subject and we all vent spleen (most of us were in lock down and online twiddling our thumbs-up emojis anyway so it gave us something to fill time between Joe Wicks and hitting the cooking sherry)
Cartoon by © Steve Bell
At the end of April, the Museums Association and the BBC launched ‘Museums From Home Day’. Martin, in collaboration with The Cartoon Museum, set the challenge of #DrawTheCoronavirus. The Musuem has now launched a fabulous ebook of the entries, featuring around 200 cartoons by 71 different artistes including Ralph Steadman, Glenn Marshall, Steve Bell, Ben Jennings, Glenn Marshall, Nick Newman, Jeremy Banx, Glenn Marshall, Steve Bright, Zoom Rockman, Grizelda, oh and Glenn Marshall.
Cartoon by © Rob Murray
ALL proceeds from the book are going towards the Cartoon Museum’s fundraising appeal to secure their long-term future after a difficult year with the pandemic. The eBook will be available to buy for a modest £10 from their online store,
Cartoon by © Grizelda
Here are couple of quotes from the press release:
Joe Sullivan, Cartoon Museum Director:
“It has been fantastic to see the creativity and humour of these artists in the face of coronavirus, reflecting issues everyone has been struggling with through lockdown, and using it as fuel to make us laugh. It is a pleasure to work with them all and share their amazing, work with everyone in this e-book. All proceeds from sales of the e-book go directly to helping the museum to secure our future, and we are very thankful to all the artists involved for donating their work to the e-book. Thank you too all our supporters for helping us to survive through the pandemic, and we hope this book brings you as much fun reading it as we had making it!”
Martin Rowson:
“Faced with an invisible enemy, a question should be nagging away at the back of each of our minds: what’s this virusy bastard LOOK like? And, as it’s our job to reimagine our leaders the better to enable us to laugh at them, who’s more qualified to define Corona in all its Pandemic Covidness than cartoonists? Forget electron microscopes – here you’ll find the truest & most accurate depictions of our Common Foe!”
.….and another quote from Martin Rowson:
“Challenge won by the Great @marshallcartoon”
Here’s Martin talking about ‘Draw The Coronavirus’ on BBC Radio 4 Today programme back in April:
Cartoon by © Steve Bright
Cartoon by © Nick Newman
For anyone wanting to join in with Mr Rowson’s caricature challenges they’re frequently set on his twitter feed @MartinRowson
Cartoon by © Zoom Rockman
By the way, did I mention who won it?
Tags: #DrawTheCoronaVirus, Banx, BBC Radio 4, Ben Jennings, Brighty, cartoonists, cartoons, Corona Virus, Covid 19, Draw The Corona Virus, Glenn Marshall, Grizelda, Joe Sullivan, Martin Rowson, Museums From Home Day, Nick Newman, Pandemic, Ralph Steadman, Rob Murray, Steve Bell, Steve Bright, The Cartoon Museum, Today programme, Zoom Rockman 1 Comment »