Spectacular, large and in colour, the comic conquered its audience from 1897 onwards. The middle classes, the working classes, and an army of immigrants were equally fascinated by the unfamiliar visual experiences they encountered in U.S. daily newspapers.
From June 23 to September 18, 2016, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt presents the first comprehensive thematic exhibition on the "pioneers of comics," who experimentally and progressively set the artistic and content-related standards of early comics. The exhibition presents six cartoonists who are outstanding for the cultural history of comics, primarily US-American.
The spread of comics in the early 20th century was based on the meteoric rise of the newspaper. Increasingly powerful printing presses and the falling price of paper made them financially affordable. This led to an explosion and democratization of images and, with the comic supplements it contained, created the first mass visual medium in history. A single New York publishing house was able to reach an audience of millions daily with just one newspaper edition. To set themselves apart from the competition, resourceful publishers like Joseph Pulitzer (1847-1911) first included magazine supplements with the Sunday papers, including ones with comics - printed large and in color. Along with the one-line strips in the weekday editions, these comic strips formed the pinnacle discipline, followed only in the late 1930s by the comic book we know today.
In the fiercely competitive newspaper market, comics meant power. The growth or decline of a newspaper was decided not by the quality of its editorials, business news, or sports section, but by the popularity of its comic strips. The legendary newspaper war from 1895 to 1898 between Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951) was fought over the comic supplements. Hearst, a publisher who had just moved to New York from San Francisco, poached Pulitzer's entire staff of illustrators in 1891 in order to strengthen his own newspaper empire.
The exhibition "Pioneers of the Comic" shows around 230 rare comic pages from 1905 to the 1940s, including many very rare original drawings by the comic artists, the majority of which are on public display at the Schirn for the first time. Interactions between comic works and developments in the visual arts of the time will also become clear.
Of the once millions of comic pages from the pioneering years, only a few copies remain today. Dedicated private collectors recognized in time - contrary to public opinion - the artistic value.
The Schirn presents the early phase of comics in "Pioneers of the Comic" with six exemplary illustrators, Winsor McCay, Lyonel Feininger, Charles Forbell, Cliff Sterrett,George Herrimans,Frank King.
(from the press release of the Schirn Frankfurt)
Further information:
http://www.schirn.de
