Captain Bruce Bairnsfather exhibition in Plugstreet (Sept 19 - Dec 24 2014)

A few weeks ago I got this kind invitation:

Mr. Gilbert DELEU, Mayor,
Mr. Didier VANDESKELDE, Chairman of "Plugstreet 14-18 experience", Deputy Mayor for Cultural Affairs,
Mr. Luc DE GEEST, Deputy Mayor for Tourism,

are delighted to invite you to the lecture proposed by Tonie and Valmai HOLT, and the inauguration of temporary exhibition "Captain Bruce Bainrsfather, the Creator of Old Bill and the Better 'Ole".

Last Friday I attended the excellent lecture given by Tonie and Valmai Holt. We all learned some interesting facts about the artist and his character Old Bill. Tonie showed us some trench and other maps to locate the places, farms and cottages  where Bruce Bairnsfather (BB) spent his time during his short stay in Belgium and where he was a witness of the Plugstreet Christmas Truce in December 1914.

I was delighted to hear that the famous BB, until the end of his life in 1959, was a very kind, amiable and cordial person. So are Tonie and Valmai Holt who gave the lecture. I was happy to see them again after we met in 2009 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the dead of BB.  The temporary exhibition shows a (small) part of the impressive BB collection owned by Tonie and Valmai: Grim wades, trench art, glass slides, jigsaw puzzles, cards, postcards, prints, magazines, etc.

Surprise of the evening was the unveiling of... the original Better Ole cartoon. A top of the art collector's item and a masterpiece of BB: the most famous cartoon of WWI.

Valmai with original Better Ole cartoon

If you like the work of Bruce Bairnsfather, then follow this tips:

1. learn more about BB on our blog or on Mark Warby's  BB website

2. like The Bruce Bairnsfather Society on Facebook (you can even join in)

3. fill in the petition to give Bruce Bairnsfather the recognition he deserves for his immeasurable contribution to boosting morale during WW1. The petition has been started by Tonie and Valmai Holt, who are proposing that a leading member of the Government should make a statement in the House that Bairnsfather's contribution during the war should be retrospectively recognised.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/the-captain-bruce-bairnsfather-recognition-2

before the lecture, I took this picture at Prowse Point cemetary

Fragments From France and The Old Bill Newsletter

Last Monday I bought seven Fragments From France at  the WWI book fair in Passchendaele. In fact the the full series was one package, but I already had number four. I made a deal with the seller and I think I paid a fair and good price for it.

And  if  you really like Bairnfather, you can join the Bruce Bairnsfather Society... or just like it on Facebook:

Facebook/TheBruceBairnsfatherSociety/timeline

All eight Fragments :

Learn more:
Bruce Bairnsfather

Bullets and Billets

A few weeks ago I bought the autobiographical book Bullets and Billets (Bruce Bairnsfather, 1916) on the annual WWI and WWII military book fair in Passchendaele (Belgium). In this book Bairsfather tells about his experiences in the trenches around Plugstreet and Ypres (Belgium), places only about 15 miles away from where I live.

In 2014 there will be a WWI cartoon exhibition in the ECC: I will be prepared...

You can find out more about Bruce Bairsfather in previous posts on our blog.

Learn more:

Free online download and e-book (Gutenberg Project)

Cost Art - Constantin Sunnerberg

A few years ago, in 2009, we asked cartoonists to make a Bruce Bairnsfather tribute cartoon based on the famous 'Better Ole' cartooon.  One of the works I received was a cartoon by Cost (Constantin Sunnerberg). Unfortunately the cartoon wasn't selected by our British friends  for publication in The  Best of Fragments From France but to me, it was one of the best cartoons received and I'm happy to present this cartoon here again.

I found many cartoons of Cost published in the yearly Press Cartoon Belgium catalogues , (Cost won several times), but what I didn't knew until a few weeks ago, was that there is an exhibition catalogue (Seed Factory, Brussels, 2006) with cartoons and work of the artist: Cost'Art. You can browse this catalogue online.

Cost  - Constantin Sunnerberg (ECC Kruishoutem, April 2012)

Enjoy some cartoons out a this catalogue:

2001 - published in "Le Soir"  (could be published in 2012...)

Cost has since found the way to participate in cartoon contests: with success. He regularly wins prizes and that doesn't surpize me...

Learn more:
Biography and Cost cartoons on Press Cartoon Belgium
Cost'Art online catalogue (recommended!)

Armistice Day 2010 - Brushes and Bayonets : Cartoons, Sketches and Paintings of World War I

With her book 'Brushes and Bayonets' (Osprey UK, 2008) Lucinda Gosling pays tribute to the magnificent artists, cartoonists and painters who illustrated the Great War. The pictures were originally published in The Illustrated London News.

I bought this book in preparation of a WW1 cartoon exhibition in the ECC and it's a reference work, just as is Mark Bryant's WWI in Cartoons.

The book has its own website with reviews, links and even pictures of the book launch in the Cartoon Museum in London. To me this is a very good idea to present a book and  it makes the effort for me to present it to you far more easy.

This is what we read on the back of the book:

"It is often said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but, during World War I, newspaper illustrations were worth even more, not only conveying the news to anxious families at home and soldiers in battle, but also entertaining and lifting the spirits of a nation at war.

Featuring work by some of the most well-known illustrators of the period fromW. Heath Robinson to Bruce Bairnsfather, this thematic collection of 250 WorldWar I magazine illustrations is published in association with The Illustrated London News (the British Harper's).

The illustrations included range from light-hearted strip cartoons and line drawings, to poignant sketches and dark and hard-hitting political satire. The images not only depict events as they happened, but reveal all the moods of a nation at war. Many are published here for the first time in 90 years, creating a unique, bittersweet portrayal of the Great War and a fascinating and very human, historical and artistic reference source."

Read more:
Brushes and Bayonets website
Armistice Day Passchendaele article
WWI in Cartoons by Mark Bryant

Bruce Bairnsfather
Louis Raemaekers

Visiting London - part 1: The Cartoon Museum

related post: Visiting London - part 2

This summer I had a city trip to London and...
the first museum I've visited in London was the Cartoon Museum. The Cartoon Museum is located just a few hundred meters from the world famous British Museum. So if you are in London and want to go to the Britsh Museum, don't forget to visit the nice Cartoon Museum in Little Russell Street. It's small, but cozy. I was welcomed by Kate Owens, who is Assistant Curator of the Museum. She gave me a short explanation about the history of the museum and let me take a short look at the museum's cartoon book library.
A promotional leaflet says:
"The Cartoon Museum shows the best of British cartoon and comic art. You can discover the roots of Britsh cartooning in the works of Hogarth, Gillray and Cruikshank, explore the worlds of Heath Robinson, H.M. Bateman, Donald McGill and David Low and chuckle at the wit of many of today's funniest artist. There is also great comic artwork from 2000AD and some of the leading creators of graphic novels".

The museum organizes changing temporary exhibitions (like the ECC) and the museum pays much attention to children by organising cartooning and animation workshops. In the museum shop, you can buy interesting cartoon books, cards, posters, etc.

I was there...

enter the museum through the cartoon wall...

part of the cartoon books collection

exhibition: the history of Britsh cartooning

second floor dedicated to comic strip

In the shop I bought the catalogue of the Heath Robinson exhibition, the museum held in 2005.

Some highlights from this unique Museum (source: museum's press release)

* Rare and original artwork on loan from The Beano, the Dandy, and Topper including The Bash Street Kids, Roger the Dodger, Billy the Whizz, Desperate Dan, Beryl the Peril and of course Dennis the Menace.

* Classic works by Gillray including The Plumb Pudding and, John Bull - taking a luncheon, and The Zenith of French Glory.

* Cartoons in 3D including Gerald Scarfe¹s memorable Chairman Mao, Scarfe's caricatured original leather armchair from 1971.

* Great gag cartoons by Larry, Kipper Williams, Tony Husband, Nick Newman and many more.

* Classic war cartoons including Sir David Low’s ‘All Behind you, Winston’, and Bruce Bairnsfather’s, ‘If you know a better ‘Ole...’

* Colour mural painted by top cartoonists including Steve Bell, Dave Brown, Martin Rowson, Peter Brookes, Chris Riddell, MAC and Hunt Emerson.

* Annual cover drawings by Carl Giles featuring the Giles family and his immortal Granny.

* A Museum shop packed with books, prints, cards and cartoon ephemera, and a Young Artists’ Gallery with facilities for drawing and learning about cartoons, children¹s and adult cartooning, animation classes and family fun days.

* The 4000 books in The Heneage Library, is available, by appointment, for browsing and research as well as a dedicated comics library upstairs.

...and over 250 original cartoons over two floors!

Learn more:

The Cartoon Museum

William Heath Robinson

Bill Mauldin: The Brass Ring

Last week I finished reading The Brass Ring (Berkley Publishing, 1971, 333 pages), an autobiography written by the American WWII cartoonist Bill Mauldin (1921-2003), in which he tells the story of his childhood and youth untill 1945, the year he won his first Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. His cartoon characters Willie and Joe became immortal. The story tells how a poor farm boy became world-famous spokesman for hundreds of thousands of young men at war, the greatest combat cartoonist ever, and won the first of his Pulitzer Prizes , all by the age of 23.

Mauldin driving his jeep in Italy

I bought this paperback edition (Berkley Publishing, 1971,333 pages) a few weeks ago for 1,75 euro. I enjoyed reading this books. It's well written, sometimes funny and taking. I learned a lot about the real life of American soldiers and the us army life during the invasion in Italy. I also learned about V-mail! Nowadays we have e-mail, but back in WWII soldiers could use this kind of Victory-mail. Mauldin drew a successful v-mail Christmas card for the GI's in Italy.

Mauldins Money-making v-mail christmas card

there is a nice story about this
cartoon in the book

pre-war cartoons

Some copies out of the book:






Here are some quotations about the book:


" Mauldin's contribution to understanding of the war and how the G.I.s saw it is unique"
(General James M. Gavin)

"If that little son-of-a-bitch sets foot in Third Army I'll throw his ass in jail."
(General George S.Patton)

"For all his often hilarious stories about snafus, high jinks and general military tomfoolery, his prose brings back the feel and smell of war, its pain and loneliness and challenge."
(Newsweek)

A few quotations out of the book I liked:

"General Theodore Roosevelt, junior", she told me. "He got up there and said your cartoons were saying what was on everybody's mind about the way infantrymen get treated in Naples. The other guy said you were inciting mutiny and Roosevelt told him you might be preventing it by blowing off a little steam for the boys" (p. 241)

"Using the survival kids they had been taught, they did some fishing with grenades and found buried wine casks by locating the steel hoops with mine detectors. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to use all of the material I got while hanging around that outfit. It was so wild it defied caricature."
(p.262, about the 1ste Special Forces)

Mauldin drew this Time cover (June 1945)

"... and General Patton, home for triumphal parades, has said I was the Bruce Bairnsfather of World War II and that he hadn't liked Bairnsfather, either." (p.331)

More Bill Mauldin related quotes on Wikiquote.

US Postal Service Mauldin stamp

(goes on sale March 2010)

Watch this Mauldin video I found on YouTube:


Learn More:
Bill Mauldin - Wikipedia (recommended)
Beyond Willie and Joe - Library of Congress + Mauldin links (recommended)
Stars and Stripes article about dead of Mauldin
Book review by Dion Osika
Willie and Joe cartoons (google images)