Thankfully, perplexed as I was as to how to do justice to the exhibition Inked: Australian Cartoons, now showing at the National Library of Australia, The Canberra Times’s own cartooning genius David Pope walked into the office.
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Pope’s work features in the exhibition, alongside more than 130 cartoons, which looks at 200 years of cartooning in Australia.
“Cartoons are a warts-and-all record of history,” he tells me. “They’re not necessarily pretty.”
Indeed, in the forward of the exhibition catalogue, Pope writes, “Cartoons are awful. A major retrospective of Australian cartooning by the National Library is a rare and welcome opportunity to marvel at just how awful they can be.”
I'm not sure I agree with him, or maybe just his definition of awful, but isn’t that exactly what a good cartoonist should do, provoke a conversation, challenge the norm, poke fun, make a point?
Inked is a fabulous journey through 200 years of cartooning in this country. From James Gillray’s The Great South Sea Caterpillar Transform’d into a Bath Butterfly, drawn in 1795, depicting Sir Joseph Banks, to Matt Golding’s 2018 cartoon The Hunter and the Hunted, a shark-fin like pair of red speedos circling a forlorn looking Malcolm Turnbull, moments of history have been captured in a single illustration.
Head of exhibitions at the National Library Guy Hansen had the task of whittling the library’s collection of 14,000 cartoons down to the 135 in the exhibition.
He’s spent 20 years researching cartoons, documenting their place in our history, and has put together an exhibition not to be missed.
“My love of cartoons started at the breakfast table of my family home,” Hansen said.
“I'd come out for breakfast and my mother would have the Sydney Morning Herald folded up in front of my piece of toast and my cup of tea.
“When I was a kid I found the cartoons the most accessible way into politics … it was a way of getting a dose of political commentary in a quick and enjoyable way.”
Hansen said satirical cartooning was not unique to Australia but there was a touch of Australianness to many of the cartoons. Stan Cross’ For Gorsake, stop laughing: this is serious, drawn in 1933 and published in Smith’s Weekly, depicts two workers dangling precariously from a building site during the Depression, with a smile on their faces.
“I think the idea of poking fun at authority figures is a universal thing,” Hansen said.
“In Australia maybe there is more of an acceptance that it's part of public life, people from overseas are often surprised at how robust political commentary is and how robust the cartoonists are.
“I don't think it's unique to Australia but we have some very good cartoonists over the years.”
You’ll recognise many names: Rocco Fazzari, Judy Horacek, Bill Leak, David Rowe, Alan Moir, Bruce Petty, John Spooner, Ron Tandberg, former long-time Canberra Times cartoonist Geoff Pryor.
There is an oral history section where you can listen to cartoonists talk about their trade.
And there’s also a fabulous children’s play space where the kids can embark on a Where’s Wally-like search for a little echidna called Inky, drawn by Pope, or read books illustrated by cartoonists in the exhibition or have a hand at drawing themselves.
“I’d like to think cartoonists are the kids who never stopped drawing,” Hansen says.
Inked: Australian Cartoons at the National Library of Australia runs until July 21, 2019.
