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Category: Cartoons

Smiling woman dressed in outdoor winter clothes holds a large, old-style camera

Geppi Gems Exhibit: Highlights from the Stephen A. Geppi Collection at the Library of Congress

Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson

The following is a guest post by Sara W. Duke, Curator of Popular and Applied Graphic Arts, Prints and Photographs Division. Popeye, Superman, Wonder Woman, Black Panther – some cartoon characters have become both instantly and internationally recognizable, but they didn’t get their start on television or in the movies, but rather on the pages …

woman with children clinging to her holding blow torch while talking with another woman

Women at Work: Glimpses through Time

Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson

Recently, while preparing to present a virtual orientation offering a sampling of Prints & Photographs Division collections for representations of work, workers and labor themes, I found myself selecting image after image that showed women working in a variety of industrial and office settings (at the same time recognizing that for centuries women have also …

Print shows five witches flying on a single broom over a rural landscape.

An Acquisition Adventure: “Loco Foco Witches Laying a Spell Over the Country”

Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson

The following is a guest post by Sara W. Duke, Curator of Popular and Applied Graphic Arts, Prints and Photographs Division. “Exceptionally rare and believed to be previously unknown,” in the seller’s letter intrigued me. On offer, an 1836 anti-Martin Van Buren woodcut print, depicting Van Buren as a witch and riding the coattails of …

Smiling woman dressed in outdoor winter clothes holds a large, old-style camera

Herb Block and Picasso?: One Cartoonist Connects with the Fine Art World

Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson

The following is a guest post by Martha H. Kennedy, Curator of Popular and Applied Graphic Arts, Prints and Photographs Division. Herb Block (aka Herblock) (1909-2001), legendary cartoonist for the Washington Post and four-time Pulitzer Prize winner, probably never met Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), but he did admire this artist and his art. He also admired, …

Smiling woman dressed in outdoor winter clothes holds a large, old-style camera

Ready for Research: Anne Mergen’s Editorial Cartoons

Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson

The following is a guest post by Martha H. Kennedy, Curator of Popular & Applied Graphic Art, Prints & Photographs Division. It’s another in our blog series “Ready for Research,” which highlights collections moving out of the backlog. We’re celebrating the recent cataloging of more than 600 editorial cartoon drawings by Anne Briardy Mergen (1906-1994). …

Effect of the marathon craze. Drawing by Charles Dana Gibson, 1909? http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cai.2a12854

In It for the Long Run

Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson

The following is a guest post by Lara Szypszak, Reference Technician in the Prints & Photographs Division. One of my favorite feelings is the wave of excitement and anxiety that washes over me as I join the crowds at the starting line of a race. There is something so special about joining a group of willing …