Mission | Aims Of The Trust | The Serious Art of Laughter
Definitions | How Can I Help?

The Cartoon Museum
35 Little Russell Street
London WC1A 2HH.
Telephone 0207 580 8155.
Email: info@cartoonmuseum.org
www.cartoonmuseum.org

See directions below

OPENING TIMES
Tuesday- Saturday 10.30-5.30.
Sunday 12.00 - 5.30

The Museum is closed
From 3.30pm on 6th December 2007. From 23 December 2007
to 2 January 2008 inclusive.

ADMISSION
£4.00 for adults
£3.00 for concessions
Free- Students, under 18s and Friends of the Cartoon Museum

Children 12 or under must be accompanied by an adult.

The Heneage Library

The library is currently open on Wednesdays from 10.30 - 13.30 and by appointment.

The Heneage Library contains over 4,000 books on cartoons, comics, caricature and animation.There are is also a collection of 2,500 comics.
The library is available for reference use only. All users must sign in and provide identification.
Lap top computers may be used in the study area.
Seating is limited so if you are planning to visit it is advisable to contact us in advance.

Click on map for larger interactive version

Directions to the Cartoon Museum

From Tottenham Court Road Station (Northern and Central Line) Come out of Exit 3 (Dominion Theatre and the British Museum).
Turn right once you come out of the exit and walk around Dorothy Perkins (Centre Point will be on the opposite side.) Walk along New Oxford Street until you come to Coptic Street. Turn left down Coptic Street. The Cartoon Museum is beside Pizza Express at the corner of Coptic Street and Little Russell Street.

From Holborn Station (Central and Piccadilly Line) When you come out of the station cross Kingsway and Holborn High Street at the lights.
Continue down Holborn High Street and then New Oxford Street until you come to traffic lights. Cross New Oxford Street and Bloomsbury Way and go down Museum Street. Take the first left down Little Russell Street and the museum will be beside The Plough pub.

Mission [back to top]

The Cartoon Museum is dedicated to preserving the best of British cartoons, caricatures, comics and animation, and to establishing a museum with a gallery, archives and innovative exhibitions to make the creativity of cartoon art past and present, accessible to all for the purposes of education, research and enjoyment.

Specific Aims of The Cartoon Museum [back to top]

• To display, primarily through exhibitions and loans, the works of art in the collection; to provide access to and facilities for the study of all objects, especially those, such as prints, drawings and water colours which cannot be kept on permanent display.
• To research into the collection and into the subject areas to which it relates, and to incorporate that research into an accessible core record of the collection, and to publish a catalogue.
• To provide a secure and stable environment for the objects in the collection and to conserve each object in good condition.
• To develop a lively programme of temporary exhibition and changing displays related as closely as possible to academic developments in the history of cartooning.
• To develop an educational service suitable for all levels including especially children's cartooning classes and public lectures.
• To develop attendance at the gallery through an increase in the number of visitors and to improve their enjoyment of their visit through the provision of suitable services.
• To develop the financial base of the Cartoon Museum, especially by attracting sponsorship of activities, development of Friends membership income, and targeted fund-raising.
• To add to the collection by donations or acquisitions where appropriate, so that it is representative of the cartoon heritage of Britain.
• To employ a qualified curator to study, exhibit and publish the collection.
• To publish a regular newsletter in which text of scholarly lectures given in the museum are reprinted to form a permanent record.

The Serious Art of Laughter [back to top]

In 1949 at the Royal Society of arts, H M Bateman discussed Humour in Art. He said:

"Is it not high time that some official recognition of the worth of comic drawing was made? A permanent collection of some of the best examples should be got together and housed under one roof, forming a sort of National Gallery of Humorous Art. It is a fine art and a big industry, but it has no central home or headquarters, as every other art and industry on the same scale has, where the best is preserved and made availabe to the student and the general public."

Fifty years on there is still no permanent museum of cartoon art.

The Cartoon Museum is a charity dedicated to establishing a permanent centre, gallery and public exhibition open all year round for the cartoon arts, cartoons, caricatures, comics and animation. Towards that goal the Trust has built up an important collection of cartoon art and is still seeking further donations. As well as organising and assisting with touring exhibitions, the Trust also arranges cartoon and animation classes for children, and runs fairs, the annual CAT cartoon awards, now in their eighth year, and a programme of lectures and events.

There are museums of cartoon art abroad. Other countries have recognised that, whether they be judged as records, conveying the spirit of the age, as works of art, or simpl as jokes, cartoons are important. the finest cartoons ARE works of art: in their original form they have an immediacy, and often much subtlety of observation and technique, which is invariably lost in reproduction. The Trust already holds over 700 fine drawings, which have been databased, given a conservation rating and digitally photographed by professional conservators, and Cat has recently raised funding for its first curator. CAT continues to strengthen its collection with archive material, sketches, photographs and a comprehensive library of over 2000 books, by, and about, cartoonists and caricaturists.

The museum will compliment the work of The Cartoon Study Centre at The University of Kent at Canterbury, which has a unique collection of original drawings of 20th Century British artists, and is widely used for research. CAT also has close ties with other cartoon organisations:The British Cartoonist's Association, The Political Cartoon Society, and The Cartoon Club of Great Britain.

Definitions

Cartoon
In 1843 in the early years of Punch, the word 'cartoon' was introduced into the English Language in the modern sense of a humorous drawing. The usage arose from a competition to supply the new Houses of Parliament with frescoes illustrating scenes from English history. The large rough designs, or 'cartoons' ( in the original sense used in fresco painting) were exhibited. The editor of Punch Mark Lemon seized the opportunity to publish his own 'cartoons', the first of which was a biting satire by John leech which bore Lemon's legend 'The poor ask for bread , and the philanthropy of the state accords an exhibition.' The new meaning stuck, and Leech is remembered as the first cartoonist in the modern sense.

Caricatura and Caricature
In 1710, Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, ousted from Royal favour by a rival, wrote to the wit Bubb Doddington: 'Young man, you come from Italy. They tell me of a new invention there called caricatura drawing. Can you find me somebody that will make me a caricature of Lady Masham, describing her covered with many sores and ulcers, that I may send to the Queen to give her a slight idea of her favourite.' This quotation provides one of the first descriptions of the art form in England where it was to become so popular. It is however worth recording a 17th Century definition on the subject 'Is it not the caricaturist's task exactly the same as the artist's? Both see the lasting truth beneath the surface of mere outward appearance. Both try to help nature accomplish its plan. The one may strive to visualise the perfect form and to realise it in his work, the other to grasp the perfect deformity, and thus reveal the very essence of personality. A good caricature, like every work of art, is more true to life than reality itself.
By Lionel Lambourne, from 'The Art of Laughter' , Copyright The Cartoon Museum

How can I help? [back to top]

You can support the Trust by joining our Friends group, which numbers over 500 supporters and cartoonists. Here are just some of their comments:

Ralph Steadman
"As a nation we have found the cartoon art form to be a vital dimension and an integral part of our culture and history. For the cartoon to be without a home is to deny the debt that we owe to generations of men and women who have enriched our lives with the wit and perception of their own experiences."

John Jensen
"A centre containing representative works from the time of Hogarth to the present day, holding a library of books of and about caricature and cartooning and a database on CD-ROM would be of inestimable value to scholars in Britain and abroad."

The late Les Lilley, President of FECO.
"The fact that literally every branch of visual art except the art of the cartoon has its own physical centre of excellence is hard to explain to the layman. He is inclined to think that the efforts of cartoonists not to be worthy of such attention. Whereas, in fact, cartoonists must be acknowledged for some of the finest draughtsman ever to have toiled for the pleasure and enjoyment of those privileged to have access to their work."

Please join these and our many other supporters and help us create the British Cartoon Centre for the next century.

"If we all know now, at last, where we are really going to, and where science and statesmanship are leading us; and if it is quite obviously to an enormous lunatic asylum, let us at least, by the grace of God, go there in company with a man who has a sense of humour." G K Chesterton

The Cartoon Art Trust Cartoon and Comic Exhibitions, 1991-2005

• 1991 Financial cartoons at The Bank of England Museum
  ‘The Art of Laughter’ in collaboration with the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

• 1992 All the World’s a Stage – Theatrical cartoons from the collection of Allan
  Cuthbertson, donated to The Cartoon Museum collection in 1997

• 1993 ‘Giles: 50 Years at the Express’
  Coping with Relations: Anglo – German Cartoons from the ‘50s to the ‘90s

• 1994 Mirth of a Nation: An A to Z of The Cartoon Art Trust’s collection

• 1995 ‘The Prime Ministers’ Cartoon history of the premiership
  Judge Dredd Mega Exhibition

• 1996 A Collection of Calmans
  All in the Stepfamily

• 1998 The Cartoonist’s Progress: In the footsteps of Hogarth

• 1999 ‘The Great Challenge’: International cartoons on freedom of speech
  and the press

• 1999 Lottery Laughter

• 1999 Gemma Bovary by Posy Simmonds

• 2000 ‘Happy Birthday Snoopy’ Peanuts caroons by Charles Schulz
  Dan Dare at 50
  The 100 British Cartoonists of the Century

• 2001 ‘The Irrespressible Hoffnung’
  ‘Dennis the Menace: 50 Years of Mischief’

• 2002 Kings and Queens

• 2003 Thelwell Country
  The Art of Leaving Out: A Phil May Centenary Exhibition
  A Mixture of Gin and Buttercups : Michael ffolkes
  Minnie, Plum and The Bash Street Kids UR 50!

• 2004 The Humour of Embarrassment:H.M. Bateman’s ‘The Man Who cartoons’
  Censored at the Seaside: The Censored Postcards of Donald McGill
  Grin and Blair It!: Ten Years of Tony Blair in Cartoons

• 2005 Rupert Bear, Punch and Much More: The Art of Alfred Bestall