I have promised myself that this year I will spend one day a month away from the house doing “something interesting”. To date that has included both a trip to the Science Museum and the British Museum in London. This month I was back in London for a trip to the lesser known Cartoon Museum.
Welcomed by an Arse
The place is in an unprepossessing back street with a tiny entrance with little fanfare other than a small board outside. When I stepped foot through the entrance the very first thing I saw was a cartoon Boris Johnson bent over baring his arse. This is going to be good I thought!
I discovered that, once again, I had booked to come the same week that the kids were off for half term but fortunately they were tucked away on a comic drawing course so I pretty much had the place to myself.
It’s not huge, just two relatively small rooms. The first details the history of cartoons over the years which started with a large printed introduction that basically said “what is a cartoon anyway?”. The second room was for temporary exhibitions, more of which later.
Despite suggesting that the definition of cartoons might be unknown it was pretty much what I and you might expect – hand drawn images poking fun at, mainly, religious and political targets. The exhibits were ordered in chronological order from their earliest form in about the 1770s when they were quite elaborate to the modern day drawings.
One section had been set aside for drawings by William Heath Robinson (think Rube Goldberg if you are American) that might help during the cost of living crisis. These were drawn during the war but were sadly still relevant today, although not the ones showing what to do with a gas mask fortunatley.
As I walked round I found myself sniggering at some of the cartoons so they clearly stand the test of time.
This Exhibition is a Work Event
The second room was probably half the size of the room devoted to the permanent collection and was showing a temporary exhibition called “This Exhibition is a Work Event”. This was a cartoonish look at the time of Boris Johnson as the UK’s Prime Minister. As you can probably imagine he didn’t come off very well from the output of all those lefty cartoonists. They are all helpfully listed here in this online catalogue if you want to see who has been nasty to Johnson: This Exhibition is a Work Event: Artist Catalogue.
While it was amusing to see Boris so comprehensively skewered it was equally depressing as it covered the “triumphs” of Brexit, Covid, sleaze and the breakdown of public services in the UK. There will be plenty of people who think that Boris is the greatest PM the country has ever had but a) they won’t be reading this blog and b) they are wrong.
Exit via the Gift Shop
There is, of course a (small) gift shop with an eclectic mix of things to buy. Their selection of cards was particularly good and I picked up one that I cannot describe as the recipient might be reading. I bought the card and was then told that I could choose a book for free to go with my purchase. I came away with the card and a book on Gerald Scarfe worth far more than the card.
All in all the Cartoon Museum is a lovely place to visit and it has free lockers to store your stuff while there. What’s not to like?
