Mission | Aims Of The Trust | The Serious Art of Laughter
Definitions | How Can I Help?

The Cartoon Museum
35 Little Russell Street
London WC1A 2HH.
Telephone 0207 580 8155.
Email: info@cartoonmuseum.org
www.cartoonmuseum.org

See directions below

OPENING TIMES
Monday – Saturday, 10.30 – 17.30 including Bank Holidays
Sunday 12.00 – 17.30

CLOSED:-
Please note we will be closed on the following dates.

• Monday 9 September
• Wednesday 25 December - 2 January 2014

ADMISSION
£5.50 Adults
£4 Concessions
£3 Students with valid student ID
Free to Under-18s, Art Fund Members and
Friends of the Cartoon Museum
Children 12 or under must be accompanied by an adult

A Student Multi-visit card valid for 5 visits over a year - £10

Group Rates
Students groups of 10+  - £2 each
Other groups of 10+      - 10% discount

Children 12 or under must be accompanied by an adult.

DISABLED ACCESS
The ground floor exhibition galleries including highlights from the history of cartoons and caricatures and the temporary exhibition gallery are on the ground floor which is wheelchair accessible.

The shop, library and wheelchair accessible toilet are accessible on the ground floor entrance area. There is one step into the shop but a wheelchair ramp is available.
We regret that there is no lift to the first floor. There are seventeen stairs with handrails on either side.

A hearing loop is located at reception.

If you have any questions regarding disabled access please contact us.
Magnifiers are also available at reception.

The Heneage Library

The library is currently open on Wednesdays from 10.30 - 13.30 and by appointment.

The Heneage Library contains over 4,000 books on cartoons, comics, caricature and animation.There are is also a collection of 2,500 comics.
The library is available for reference use only. All users must sign in and provide identification.
Lap top computers may be used in the study area.
Seating is limited so if you are planning to visit it is advisable to contact us in advance.

Click on map for larger interactive version

Directions to the Cartoon Museum

From Tottenham Court Road Station (Northern and Central Line) Come out of Exit 3 (Dominion Theatre and the British Museum).
Turn right once you come out of the exit and walk around Dorothy Perkins (Centre Point will be on the opposite side.) Walk along New Oxford Street until you come to Coptic Street. Turn left down Coptic Street. The Cartoon Museum is beside Pizza Express at the corner of Coptic Street and Little Russell Street.

From Holborn Station (Central and Piccadilly Line) When you come out of the station cross Kingsway and High Holborn at the lights.
Continue down High Holborn and then New Oxford Street until you come to traffic lights. Cross New Oxford Street and Bloomsbury Way and go down Museum Street. Take the first left down Little Russell Street and the museum will be beside The Plough pub.

Mission [back to top]

The Cartoon Museum is dedicated to preserving the best of British cartoons, caricatures, comics and animation, and to establishing a museum with a gallery, archives and innovative exhibitions to make the creativity of cartoon art past and present, accessible to all for the purposes of education, research and enjoyment.

Specific Aims of The Cartoon Museum [back to top]

• To display, primarily through exhibitions and loans, the works of art in the collection; to provide access to and facilities for the study of all objects, especially those, such as prints, drawings and water colours which cannot be kept on permanent display.
• To research into the collection and into the subject areas to which it relates, and to incorporate that research into an accessible core record of the collection, and to publish a catalogue.
• To provide a secure and stable environment for the objects in the collection and to conserve each object in good condition.
• To develop a lively programme of temporary exhibition and changing displays related as closely as possible to academic developments in the history of cartooning.
• To develop an educational service suitable for all levels including especially children's cartooning classes and public lectures.
• To develop attendance at the gallery through an increase in the number of visitors and to improve their enjoyment of their visit through the provision of suitable services.
• To develop the financial base of the Cartoon Museum, especially by attracting sponsorship of activities, development of Friends membership income, and targeted fund-raising.
• To add to the collection by donations or acquisitions where appropriate, so that it is representative of the cartoon heritage of Britain.
• To employ a qualified curator to study, exhibit and publish the collection.
• To publish a regular newsletter in which text of scholarly lectures given in the museum are reprinted to form a permanent record.

Definitions

Cartoon
In 1843 in the early years of Punch, the word 'cartoon' was introduced into the English Language in the modern sense of a humorous drawing. The usage arose from a competition to supply the new Houses of Parliament with frescoes illustrating scenes from English history. The large rough designs, or 'cartoons' ( in the original sense used in fresco painting) were exhibited. The editor of Punch Mark Lemon seized the opportunity to publish his own 'cartoons', the first of which was a biting satire by John leech which bore Lemon's legend 'The poor ask for bread , and the philanthropy of the state accords an exhibition.' The new meaning stuck, and Leech is remembered as the first cartoonist in the modern sense.

Caricatura and Caricature
In 1710, Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, ousted from Royal favour by a rival, wrote to the wit Bubb Doddington: 'Young man, you come from Italy. They tell me of a new invention there called caricatura drawing. Can you find me somebody that will make me a caricature of Lady Masham, describing her covered with many sores and ulcers, that I may send to the Queen to give her a slight idea of her favourite.' This quotation provides one of the first descriptions of the art form in England where it was to become so popular. It is however worth recording a 17th Century definition on the subject 'Is it not the caricaturist's task exactly the same as the artist's? Both see the lasting truth beneath the surface of mere outward appearance. Both try to help nature accomplish its plan. The one may strive to visualise the perfect form and to realise it in his work, the other to grasp the perfect deformity, and thus reveal the very essence of personality. A good caricature, like every work of art, is more true to life than reality itself.
By Lionel Lambourne, from 'The Art of Laughter' , Copyright The Cartoon Museum

How can I help? [back to top]

You can support the Trust by joining our Friends group, which numbers over 750 supporters and cartoonists. Here are just some of their comments:

Ralph Steadman
"As a nation we have found the cartoon art form to be a vital dimension and an integral part of our culture and history. For the cartoon to be without a home is to deny the debt that we owe to generations of men and women who have enriched our lives with the wit and perception of their own experiences."

John Jensen
"A centre containing representative works from the time of Hogarth to the present day, holding a library of books of and about caricature and cartooning and a database on CD-ROM would be of inestimable value to scholars in Britain and abroad."

The late Les Lilley, President of FECO.
"The fact that literally every branch of visual art except the art of the cartoon has its own physical centre of excellence is hard to explain to the layman. He is inclined to think that the efforts of cartoonists not to be worthy of such attention. Whereas, in fact, cartoonists must be acknowledged for some of the finest draughtsman ever to have toiled for the pleasure and enjoyment of those privileged to have access to their work."

Please join these and our many other supporters and help us create the British Cartoon Centre for the next century.

"If we all know now, at last, where we are really going to, and where science and statesmanship are leading us; and if it is quite obviously to an enormous lunatic asylum, let us at least, by the grace of God, go there in company with a man who has a sense of humour." G K Chesterton

The Cartoon Art Trust Cartoon and Comic Exhibitions, 1991-2005

• 1991 Financial cartoons at The Bank of England Museum
  ‘The Art of Laughter’ in collaboration with the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

• 1992 All the World’s a Stage – Theatrical cartoons from the collection of Allan
  Cuthbertson, donated to The Cartoon Museum collection in 1997

• 1993 ‘Giles: 50 Years at the Express’
  Coping with Relations: Anglo – German Cartoons from the ‘50s to the ‘90s

• 1994 Mirth of a Nation: An A to Z of The Cartoon Art Trust’s collection

• 1995 ‘The Prime Ministers’ Cartoon history of the premiership
  Judge Dredd Mega Exhibition

• 1996 A Collection of Calmans
  All in the Stepfamily

• 1998 The Cartoonist’s Progress: In the footsteps of Hogarth

• 1999 ‘The Great Challenge’: International cartoons on freedom of speech
  and the press

• 1999 Lottery Laughter

• 1999 Gemma Bovary by Posy Simmonds

• 2000 ‘Happy Birthday Snoopy’ Peanuts caroons by Charles Schulz
  Dan Dare at 50
  The 100 British Cartoonists of the Century

• 2001 ‘The Irrespressible Hoffnung’
  ‘Dennis the Menace: 50 Years of Mischief’

• 2002 Kings and Queens

• 2003 Thelwell Country
  The Art of Leaving Out: A Phil May Centenary Exhibition
  A Mixture of Gin and Buttercups : Michael ffolkes
  Minnie, Plum and The Bash Street Kids UR 50!

• 2004 The Humour of Embarrassment:H.M. Bateman’s ‘The Man Who cartoons’
  Censored at the Seaside: The Censored Postcards of Donald McGill
  Grin and Blair It!: Ten Years of Tony Blair in Cartoons

• 2005 Rupert Bear, Punch and Much More: The Art of Alfred Bestall