Karl Meersman and craftsmanship

Last week I attended a lecture by Karl Meersman in my home town Wevelgem. It was a very interesting evening  not only to meet with Karl, but also to listen to a passionate artist. Karl told about his work, his ideas, his style and his technique. Karl has much  respect for craftsman and craftsmanship.   A craftsman is an artist skilled in the techniques of an art or craft.
Karl learned his skills, e.g. his fine watercolor (aquarelle) technique,  from different old masters and academy teachers whom unfortunately all are dead now. You hardly can learn this techniques at present  because there are or no masters  left  who can teach these unique techniques.

Karl's art is made the old fashioned way, i.e. without using computers and Photoshop. All his drawings are unique pieces. As a real craftsman Karl is proud to present the public drawings of the highest quality. For that reason Karl wants to show only original drawings in his exhibitions. By doing so the public can enjoy the works the best way and discover the finest details. Colors and lines of original drawings are pure and not deformed as you can expect of prints or scans of the original.

I agree with the tendency that craftsmanship, pure products, honest products, products with character made with love,  are more and more appreciated in our modern computerized world.

Karl's work and humor fits perfect in this framework!

The most recent book with Karl's work is the exhibition catalogue Ave Eva (Roularta Books, ISBN 9789086794331):

Since this week you can watch these videos Karl Meersman put online on YouTube. Interesting!

About the Ave Eva exhibtion (Gent, 2012):

TV Interview: Karl Meersman on Belgian television (DeRedaktie.be - 5/2/2012)

Learn more:
www.karlmeersman.be
www.karlmeersman.be/video
Report of the lecture by Jeroen
Karl Meersman on our Blog
Videozone

Florian Doru Chrihana : Satirische Idyllen

Last Friday I had the honour to meet the very kind Florian at the opening of his exhibition in the ECC. He brought along some copies of the book "Satirische Idyllen". This monography  (ISBN 978-3-86678-317-1,Kerber Art,2009) contains his work shown in the exhibition in the "Musée de la caricature" in Vianden, Luxemburg in 2009. Dieter and Gisela Burkamp, good friends of Florian, wrote an introduction. I read:  "Florian plays with our mind for images and like a magician he conjures pictures that are not lost for grotesque ideas and adventurous supplies of interpretation " and "This is an artist who did not only understand how to design the 'inner life' of ships as an engineer of shipbuilding but who also looks into the 'inner lives' of his fellow men knowingly, and he knows how to convey his ideas."
Great art, great cartoon book.

cover

Florian, signing the book,
Kruishoutem, 7 Oct 2011

Here are some pics of the exhibition in the ECC:

Ro Burms presenting the artist

Titanic

Venice (the person resembles the famous Belgian
standup comedian Bert Kruismans!)

Venice 

Learn more:
Florian Chrihana's Blog
Current exhibition of Florian at the ECC (Titanic, Venice, Snowman)
Museum of Caricature Vianden

"Niks aan de hand" (Nothing wrong) by Stefan Verwey

Some CNN, BBC and Al Jazeera newtitles of last week:
"Unrest in the Middle East and North Africa."
"Bahrein protesters press demands"
"Liberate us!"
"Appeal to spare Libyan civilians"

Looking for cartoons that could illustrate restriction of freedom, I want to refer to some cartoons drawn by the Dutch cartoonist Stefan Verwey (born 1946) in his book "Niks aan de hand" ("nothing wrong"), published in 1978 (!!!).

The cartoons below are more than 30 years old, but still could by published on tomorrow's frontpage of any newspaper in the world. That's the power of good cartoons!

Learn more:
Biography
Stefan Verwey on Lambiek.net
De Harmonie.nl - publishers

Coco - Der Satyr (sexdemon cartoons...)

Almost Valentine's Day... time again for an erotic cartoon book, this time by Giuseppe Coco (born in Italy, 1936).

 "Der Satyr - Wie wärs mit einem kleinen Sexdämon?" (German edition by Stalling, 1981, ISBN 3-7979-1698-1)
translated: "The satyr - how about a little sexdemon?"

"Kürze Hörner, ein Ringelschwanz und Spitzohren sind die Kennzeichnen der Satyrn, jener neckischen kleinen Sexdämonen, die schon mit den Griechinnen ihre erotischen Spiele trieben. Wer sind sie wirklich und wie kommt man an solch ein liebestolles Wesen heran? Coco gibt mit spitzer Feder Auskunft."

satyr by Coco

Short horns, a curled tail and pointed ears are the characteristics of the satyr (*) , that small sexdemons that already played their erotic games with the ancient Greek woman. Who are they really and how does one approach such a great love creature? Coco gives us al the information this mythical creature with his sharp pen.

(*) the Cultural Dictionary defines satyr as a creature in classical mythology who was part man and part goat. Satyrs were famous for being constantly drunk and for chasing nymphs. They were companions of Dionysus.

ten commandments

Learn more:
Giuseppe Coco on Wikipedia
More funny erotic cartoons on our blog

Mikhail Zlatkovsky and André Nollet in the ECC

Two new exhibitions opened in the European Cartoon Center.

Russian top cartoonist Zlatkovsky and Belgian cartoonist André Nollet present a selection of their best cartoons. In a next post I'll introduce André Nollet to you.

Now, let's look at the work of 'Misha' Mikhail Zlatkovsky who was in a former life a nuclear physicist. He won almost 200 international cartoon prizes, of which 50 first prizes.

Professor Waegemans from the University of Leuven

(who translated Russian to Dutch),

Rudy Gheysens and Misha Zlatkovsky

Zlatkovsky signing a book

for Philippe Bossens

Several books of Zlatkovsky have been published:

Zamki z żelbetu (Muzeum Karykatury, Warchau, 1988)

Mikhail Zlatkovsky. Illustrazioni e visioni (Fanofunny, 1998)

Russkaia klassiyeskaia erotika (Moscow, 2000)

and Chendevri (Moscow,2008).

This is are pics of the Chendevri catalogue:

Learn More:

Mikhail Zlatkovsky's website

The art of incredible Mikhail Zlatkovsky

More Zlatkovsky cartoons

20 anos de desenhos - Antonio Antunes (Portugal)

article by JMB

António, born in 1953, is one of the actual greatest Portuguese cartoonists, not to say the best one. He publishes his first cartoon in the daily paper República on March 1974. At the end of this year he is the editorial cartoonist for Expresso, his country’s largest weekly paper. His brilliantly designed caricatures are also seen on Portuguese television and in other leading journals, such as Courrier International in France, as well as in the USA and internationally through the Cartoonists & Writers Syndicate (New York). He published six books and has been honoured during his career with an array of awards. António is also the creator and director of the “World Press Cartoon”, a salon reserved to the cream of the cream. Each one of these big catalogues is a real survey over one year of the world best press cartoons. Obviously, António produces and loves quality cartoons!

Mario Soares (1991)

Mikhael Gorbachev (1991)

Ronald Reagan (1984)

Veni, TV, Vinci (1994)

The economy cow (1992)

Learn more:
Caricatures d'Antonio
Antinio Antunes on Brazil Cartoon
Cartoonbook file

EWK - Ewert Karlsson (Sweden, 1918-2004)

Article by JMB

EWK (1918-2004) was the great master of Swedish cartoon. He begins to draw in the national press at the age of 33 . Two years later, his first book is published; this collection of his wicked portraits brings him a well-deserved success and several cartoon books are following. From then on, newspapers and magazines of the world over fight over EWK’s works: 'Atlas Magazine, the Express (of Paris), the British Observer, Punch, and The Herald Tribune, Newsweek, the New York Times, and any number of German, Italian, Arab publications plus, of course, practically all Scandinavian newspapers and periodicals. It is to say his international fame. He illustrated more than fifty books, ten of them his own cartoon books.






Learn more:
EWK Gallery and website (Swedish)
EWK cartoonbook file