Drawn to the Truth
The work of Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post political cartoonist Herbert Block comes to VWC’s Neil Britton Art Gallery, March 3-17
By Leona Baker | February 16, 2011
(NORFOLK/VIRGINIA BEACH) He took on titans. He championed the underprivileged. He spoke up for those without a public voice. Above all, he held people in positions of power accountable to those who put them there.
Virginia Wesleyan College and the Herb Block Foundation present the work of Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post political cartoonist Herbert Block, better known as "Herblock," March 3-17, at the Neil Britton Art Gallery in Hofheimer Library.
Herblock (1909-2001) is one of the best known and most admired political cartoonists in the world. This traveling retrospective panel exhibit features work from Herblock's illustrious career, focusing on his unflinching examinations of education, democracy, civil rights and the presidency in America. Herblock is the only living cartoonist to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Transcending political parties and ideologies, Herblock’s minimal but expressive graphic style allowed him to tackle a wide range of topics and social ills—from McCarthyism to the turmoil of the Civil Rights era to corruption and abuse of power in American government. His approach was sometimes satirical and other times more straightforward, particularly on the issues he considered to be especially grave. His commitment was always to “draw it as he saw it.”
The exhibit is accompanied by a brief video biography titled Herblock: The Man Behind the Cartoons, which offers a look into the life of a man who was known to be gentle and self-effacing in person, yet steely and unflinching with a pen.
“Herb Block's cartoons may never cure cancer or the common cold,” wrote Harry Katz, former head curator of the Prints and Photographs Division at the Library of Congress. “But for the better part of a century they have helped ward off the ill effects of war, bigotry, economic opportunism, political arrogance and social injustice. What more could we ask of one man?”
For more information about Herb Block's life and work, visit the Herb Block Foundation website.
The Herblock exhibition is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Patty Clark with Hofheimer Library at 757.455.3221 or e-mail phclark@vwu.edu.
And don't miss:
Surely They Jest: Political Cartoonists John Lawing and Walt Taylor
March 9, 7-9 p.m., Boyd Dining Hall
In conjunction with the Herblock exhibit, Hampton Roads-based editorial cartoonists John Lawing and Walt Taylor will discuss and illustrate the power, creativity and fun of drawing editorial cartoons. This event is free and open to the public.