As a cartoonist myself, Pat Oliphant is one of my favorite editorial/political cartoonist. His cartoon works are visually stunning and the characters in his cartoon are metaphorically powerful.

Oliphant also has his own image trademark who often seen making sarcastic comment, a small penguin character named “Punk”. Beside drawing cartoons, Oliphant also crafted small sculptures and do some paintings.

Patrick Bruce “Pat” Oliphant born July 24, 1935 in Adelaide, Australia, described by the New York Times as “the most influential cartoonist now working” with his works which now spans over fifty years since 1952, when he started as a copyboy with the Adelaide News.

In 1964 he emigrated to the United States and began to working as a political cartoonist at The Denver Post and quickly became nationally and internationally syndicated in 1965. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1967 for his February 1, 1966 cartoon “They Won’t Get Us To The Conference Table . . . Will They?”.

In addition to winning the Pulitzer Prize, Oliphant won the National Cartoonist Society Editorial Cartoon Award seven times, the Reuben Award twice, the Premio Satira Politica of Italy, “Best Editorial Cartoonist“ award from the National Cartoonist Society, and the Thomas Nast Prize in Germany.

And while his work receive many appreciation and awarded, he also has occasionally been criticized. In 2001, the Asian American Journalists Association accused Oliphant of “cross[ing] the line from acerbic depiction to racial caricature”. In 2005 and 2007, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee expressed concern that some of Oliphant’s caricatures were racist and misleading.

Oliphant’s work also appeared in several exhibitions, to name a few is the National Portrait Gallery and in 1998, the Library of Congress commemorated the acquisition of 60 of his works with a special exhibition at the Library’s Great Hall.

Oliphant has published many books, including “Oliphant’s Anthem”, “101 Things to Do With a Conservative,” “The New World Order in Drawing and Sculpture”, “Oliphant’s Presidents: Twenty-Five Years of Caricature by Pat Oliphant”, and 15 cartoon collection books.

Source and image credits:

• Wikipedia
• Oliphant’s Anthem
• (Library of Congress Exhibition)
• uClick
• Ban This Book! A cartoon collection by Pat Oliphant 1981-1982. Andrew and McMeel, Inc.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, September 20th, 2008 at 1:33 am and is filed under Art, Cartoon, Drawing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.