School of Art

Contact Details

School of Art
Aberystwyth University
Buarth Mawr
Aberystwyth
Ceredigion
SY23 1NG

Tel: +44 (0)1970 622460

Fax: +44 (0)1970 622461

Email: artschool@aber.ac.uk


Display artist/maker:

George Cruikshank

Born: 1792, UK, England, London   Died: 1878, UK, England, London

Caricaturist and illustrator. Son of caricaturist Isaac Cruikshank. Began his artistic career making social caricatures of English life that featured in several magazines. Achieved success in 1819 for his illustrations to the satirical pamphlet ‘The Political House that Jack Built’, a collaboration with the publisher William Hone. Much of his early work attacks politicians and the Royal Family, but in 1820 he received a Royal bribe of £100 to agree to not caricature the Queen in any immoral situation. He has been cited as replacing James Gillray, his significant influence, as England’s most popular satirist. In 1823 he turned to book illustration when he illustrated the first English translation of the Grimm’s Fairy Tales. By 1836 he was illustrating the novels of Charles Dickens, including The Mudfrog Papers, 1837-8 and Oliver Twist, 1838. After spending many years as a heavy drinker, falling out with Charles Dickens and fathering 11 illegitimate children, in the late 1840s he became teetotal and joined the National Temperance Society. He established a role as supplying their illustrations, making several series’ of prints that discourage excess drinking. He created nearly ten thousand prints, plates and illustrations in his lifetime

Objects in the collections associated with this artist/maker

PL757 Prints1860s

My Xmas. Box PL758 Prints1860s




 
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