Lines of Attack: Conflicts in Caricature

Author Chris Lamb, professor of communications, College of Charleston, poses at the exhibition entrance with Anne Schroder, the museum’s curator and academic programs coordinator, and curator and Duke Professor Neil McWilliam. Photo by J Caldwell. — Author Chris Lamb, professor of communications, College of Charleston, poses in the gallery with Anne Schroder, the museum’s curator and academic programs coordinator, who served as coordinating curator for the exhibition, and curator and Duke Professor Neil McWilliam. Photo by J Caldwell.

The Nasher Museum presented an exhibition comparing the 19th-century origins of journalistic caricature with its transformation in the digital age.

Lines of Attack: Conflicts in Caricature juxtaposed political cartoons from the past, such as works featuring French King Louis-Philippe (1830-1848) by Honoré Daumier and his contemporaries, with work produced more recently during the tenures of U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush (1993-2009).

Artists in the show include Garry Trudeau of the syndicated cartoon Doonsbury, Steve Bell of the Guardian, Duane Powell of The (Raleigh) News and Observer, Gerald Scarfe of London’s Sunday Times and such seasoned political cartoonists as Steve Brodner, Jeff Danziger and Pat Oliphant.

The exhibition highlighted the development of graphic satire as a significant journalistic medium and explored its strengths and limitations as a catalyst for political debate. The exhibition also investigated caricature’s prospective place within emerging web-based media, as traditional print journalism continues to adapt to new technological forms.

Lines of Attack was organized by the Nasher Museum, with guest curator Neil McWilliam, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Art & Art History in Duke’s Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies. Anne Schroder was the Nasher Museum’s coordinating curator for the exhibition.

Seven students assisted McWilliam in the organization of the exhibition: Duke graduate students Alexis Clark and Katherine de Vos Devine, Duke undergraduates Corina Apostol and Ruthie Chen, and graduate students Alison Hafera Cox, Kate Arpen and Mara West from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Support

The exhibition, its catalogue and related programming were generously supported by Duke University’s Provost’s Common Fund, the Sunny Rosenberg Endowment Fund and the Sandra A. Urie and Katherine Urie Thorpe Endowment Fund. Additional in-kind support was provided by the Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies and The Chronicle.