The Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation are shocked and saddened to hear of the death of the London Cartoon Museum’s Alison Brown.
Aged just 39, Alison was the museum’s retail and front of house manager as well as assisting with exhibitions and being the face of many public events. She was a passionate advocate for cartoons and comic art and an instantly likeable person, popular with everyone who met her.
Having been admitted to hospital in December with a pelvic infection she had undergone surgery and transferred to a rehab ward where she remained in good spirits. Tragically, she then contracted Covid 19 which, due to her weakened state, she was unable to fight off.
Our deepest sympathies go out to Alison’s family and friends.
Here’s another tribute to Alison by The Cartoon Museum Director Joe Sullivan:The Museums Association
There is a fundraiser commemorating the life of Alison by raising money for both Cancer Research UK and The Cartoon Museum. More details here: here
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)
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.
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,
“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!”
Spread over two nights last week, so that the maximum number of people could turn up, London’s new Cartoon Museum opened its doors and let a few highly important guests have a good gawp around. The glamorous Cartoonerati turned out in force to see the newly renovated (if not quite finished) museum which has moved to a large basement in Wells Street, Fitzrovia.
It was one of those rare hot and humid days in the city which tested the air-conditioning to its limits and reduced most of the attendant humans to sweaty, ink-stained wrecks. However, there was cold wine provided as well as unidentified little things on plates and a communal defibrillator to keep everyone conscious. Speeches were made by Oliver Preston, new director Becky Jeffcoate, our own Steve Bell who had selected and hung the artwork for the show, and Baron (Kenneth) Baker of Dorking (the 84 year old politician not the bloke who used to trundle around inside R2-D2).
The new museum has the same floor area as the old one but is now all on one level and has a safer, cheaper lease so it should be safe for a while yet.
The move has been necessitated by a severe rent rise at the current location.
The new museum will be housed at 55 Wells Street, which is north of Oxford Street in Fitzrovia, close to the BBC and Westminster University.
Artist’s impression of the new building.
It’s a great basement area, which at 4,200 sq ft is the same size as the current museum but it will have a higher ceiling. As part of the new build – by developers by Great Portland Estates – the Museum has secured a 25 year lease at a peppercorn rent (ie. no rent for 25 years) It is scheduled to open early in 2019.
Detailed plans of the new space are on display in the gallery.
The Museum is open to hear ideas and suggestions for the new location.
The varied ‘50 Glorious Shows!’ exhibition showcases what the Cartoon Museum has achieved since being at its current location, 50 being the number of exhibitions it has staged. It features original cartoons and comics from over 170 cartoon creators.
Since the museum moved to Little Russell Street twelve years ago its collection has risen from 1,500 cartoons to now over 4,000, these acquisitions mostly coming as donations.
Disclaimer: Any opinion expressed here is that of the named individual and not that of the UK Professional Cartoonists' Organisation unless explicitly stated. Artwork attributed to a named author or publication on this diary should be noted by anyone linking to us from any other site. Thank you. If you wish to reproduce an image please contact the artist from here.
Latest Blog
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 2 Comments »