Basil Wolverton Exhibition
Gladstone Gallery (Chelsea 24th Street)
This event has ended.
Basil Wolverton submitted his first cartoon for publication in 1925 when he was only sixteen and remained an active cartoonist from the 1940s through to the 1970s. His unique and humorously grotesque drawings reveal both his fantastic wit and inventive technique, once famously described in LIFE Magazine as the “spaghetti and meatball school of design.”
Wolverton had no formal training as an artist, creating his own style that distinguished him from the other cartoonists of his generation. As he said, “I know I draw things that look like all kinds of organs and glands, it is like the monkey which, if he pounded away for a million years, might accidentally type out the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ lyrics.” Generations of artists including Peter Saul, Ed Ruscha, Robert Williams, Jim Shaw, Mike Kelley, and Cameron Jamie have been influenced by his meticulous technique and pictorial freedom, in addition to its undeniable impact on numerous cartoonists from R. Crumb to Drew Friedman.
Media
Schedule
from June 20, 2009 to August 14, 2009