Delaware Art Museum Presents 'Toon Age

The Delaware Art Museum presents Art in the 'Toon Age, an exhibition of nearly 60 paintings, works on paper, and mixed-media pieces, from March 24 through May 13, 2007. This exhibition showcases artists from three generations and eight countries whose bright colors, bold linearity, and shorthand communication devices spring from the cartoon and advertising styles of the 1940s and 1950s, as well as from the post-Pop aesthetics of the later 20th century.

"Art in the 'Toon Age makes you realize what an impression cartoons have made on our collective eye," said Dr. Mary F. Holahan, Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at the Delaware Art Museum. "You would never mistake these works for cartoons, but their lively design-and often subversive commentary-definitely come from that visual vocabulary."

The styles and subjects of Art in the 'Toon Age are individual reactions to a visual culture that has embraced comic strips, cartoons, animation, and commercial art. Commonplace imagery and standardized design have characterized these popular forms of entertainment and commerce since the early 20th century. In the 1960s, Pop art adopted many of the strategies and images of mass-produced images and transformed pop culture into high art.

Artists such as Red Grooms, Ida Applebroog, and John Clem Clarke often implied stories in their comic narratives and paralleled Pop art's use of commercial culture in the 1960s and '70s. The 1980s generation, including Luis Cruz Azaceta and Sue Williams, introduced complex themes, including political and personal ones, into their graphic style. The 1990s generation of Laylah Ali, Steve DeFrank, and others is part of a world-wide attraction to a multiplicity of cartoon styles, from Disney to anime.

Some of these artists, ranging in age from 79 to 32, are well known, while others are just beginning to gain recognition. Using spare or decorative line, brilliant or subtle color, explicit or implied story-lines, and often with provocative imagery and subversive humor, they navigate themes of social justice, personal experience, and popular culture.

Also included in the exhibition are historically relevant cartoons, comics, and anime, including works by Disney studios, R. Crumb, Stan Lee, and Otomo Katsuhiro.

This exhibition was organized by the Kresge Art Museum, Michigan State University. The national museum tour was organized by Landau Traveling Exhibitions, Los Angeles. -- www.delart.org

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