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Art Crime

First published in The Guardian, 19 March, 2014

 

I found this page of old police mugshots in my sock drawer. No idea how it got there but it meant I didn’t have to think up a new cartoon, which was a relief.  This may be cheating but morality isn’t my strong suit.

 

Occasionally, due to the extreme ineptness of the wannabe criminal, a case goes viral on the internet. This happened with Venus de Milo. It didn’t hurt that she was topless.

 

Judith slipped into Holofernes tent with the promise of sex and under this false pretense took something extremely valuable from him. Holofernes was so shocked that he lost his mind. Also his beard, hair and face. His whole head basically. 

 

As is the case with the vast majority of aircraft arrests, Leda was probably drunk. Have you ever noticed that kids born to parents of different races (miscegenation) are usually very good looking? Apparently it is even more pronounced when the parents are of different species (mistake). One of Leda’s children from this disgusting encounter was Helen of Troy. True story, though a myth.

 

Picasso started out as such a fine, skilful artist that it is almost unbelievable he became so crap at drawing later on. It’s so hard to believe that I suspect he might have been doing it on purpose. The authorities certainly thought so and he was duly arrested. Wrongly in my view. He obviously had mental problems.

 

The gendarme who arrested Manet’s barmaid was heard to say of her that the lights were on but nobody was home. Fair enough. Any bar staff worth their salt could tell that this Toulouse-Lautrec person was underage. He was also highly aggressive and appeared to have a chip on his shoulder about something. I was pleased to discover that this truculent individual was successfully prosecuted and placed in a young offenders institution for 32 years.

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Marge Giaconda

One of my artoons (this one) has just been published in a terrific new book by Prestel – “Mona Lisa to Marge: How the World’s Greatest Artworks Entered Popular Culture”. Originally published by the very classy Lazy Dog Press in Milan, it has a preface by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, he of La Nona Ora (The Ninth Hour) fame. I feel honoured.

This is what you’ll find…

This highly entertaining exploration of art, history, and commerce reveals how 30 masterpieces made the journey from image to icon. How did paintings such as the Mona Lisa, Birth of Venus, and The Scream achieve worldwide recognition? Why do certain works of art populate T-shirts, coffee mugs, calendars, and advertising? Witty and well researched, this accessible exploration of visual and popular culture reveals how particular works of art have become part of the collective imagination. Readers will learn that Myron s Discobolus only became widely known when the sculpture was used to promote the Olympics, that the success of Leonardo s Last Supper is due to the fact that it was one of the first paintings to be mass-reproduced, that the Mona Lisa became a celebrity only after being stolen from the Louvre, and that Girl with a Pearl Earring was deemed a minor Vermeer until it became the subject of a bestselling novel. Ranging from the classical to the contemporary, travelling through the Renaissance, Impressionism, Surrealism, and abstraction, Mona Lisa to Marge offers insights that are in turn thought provoking, irreverent, and surprising. Generously illustrated, the book features the original artworks as well as the cartoons, ads, book and album covers, and everyday objects they inspired. The book will open readers eyes to the artistic images that have become universal touchstones and the fascinating stories of how and why they got there.

 

Available in all good book shops.

But since they have all closed down due to the pernicious influence of the internet, you can buy it on the internet. Try Amazon.