Modern art

Contemporary art cartoon

Contemporary art – is meaning more important than quality?

A cartoon concerned with judging modern art or contemporary art by its meaning and by its quality.
Because modern and contemporary art often have a cerebral dimension they are often judged by this metric rather than that of aesthetic quality or the quality of execution.

Cartoon drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art078

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Picasso cartoon

Picasso painting a portrait.

The cartoon shows Picasso at work on an oil painting of a woman.
The painting is in one of Picasso’s most recognisable styles, in which the features of the person are very distorted.
Picasso is saying “This painting will make you so famous that you won’t be able to walk down the street without being recognised.”

First version drawn: 2007
This version: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art071

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Modern art cartoon – pop-up book of modern sculpture

Modern art cartoon – pop-up book of modern sculpture.

The cartoon shows a man in the bookshop of an art gallery opening a book.
The book is a pop-up book of modern sculpture.
The sculpture is unfolding in the manner of a children’s pop-up book.

The cartoon is partly a comment on the gimmicky merchandising of art as found in art gallery gift shops (I quite like some of this merchandise – I have a Mona Lisa tea tray and a bar of chocolate with Munch’s Scream on it amongst others).
It is also a comment on the welcome move away from stuffy elitism that used to make art intimidating and inaccessible to many people.
The sculpture in the cartoon is of the modernist variety that includes constructivism and industrial steel plate sculptures – genres that lend themselves well to the pop-up treatment.

Cartoon drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art075

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Art gallery sculpture cartoon

Sculpture displayed in an art gallery – cartoon.

The cartoon shows a row of busts displayed in an art gallery or museum.
The busts all rest on plinths, as is conventional. However, one of the plinths has feet below it as well as a head above it.

Cartoon drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art074

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Rorschach inkblot test – art cartoon

Contemporary art composed of Rorschach tests.

The cartoon shows three images of the same Rorschach inkblot test image displayed on an art gallery wall. Each image is given a different title based on different possibilities of what the inkblot suggests.

The cartoon is partly about the multiple interpretations that can be made of works of contemporary art.

First version drawn: 2017
This version: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art070

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
The self-absorbed artist – cartoon

A self-absorbed artist and his long suffering wife or partner.

The conflict between the urge to be a creative artist and domestic duties.

In the cartoon an artist is in his studio creating massive colour field paintings. His wife or partner is complaining that he really ought to get round to painting the kitchen.
Part of the joke is that applying paint to a colour field painting is not dissimilar to applying paint to kitchen walls, yet he chooses to only work on the paintings.
Artists can sometimes be perceived as being very selfish self-absorbed individuals who’s work takes priority over all other things, including domestic chores and household duties.

First version drawn: 2012
This version: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art068

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Understanding contemporary art cartoon

Understanding contemporary art cartoon

A cartoon showing a piece of contemporary art on an art gallery wall.
It is a text piece, that reads If you think you understand it you don’t understand it.
A man looking at the artwork is saying “Of course I understand it.”

The cartoon is partly about the cliche of the over-confident man who thinks that he knows everything (especially when he’s talking to a woman). It’s also about the related subject of people posturing in their knowledge and understanding about contemporary art.
The artwork on the gallery wall is a form of conundrum or paradox.
Contemporary art often defies easy analysis because it’s beyond the normal parameters of experience. Sometimes it’s accused of deliberate and pretentious obfuscation.

Cartoon drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art067

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Art gallery merchandise cartoon – Kazimir Malevich black square

Kazimir Malevich cartoon – black square jigsaw puzzle.

A cartoon about art merchandising – the sort of novelty item you can purchase in art gallery and museum gift shops.
Art galleries and museums generate quite a lot of much needed income through merchandising and gift shops (and cafés).
Here the merchandise is a jigsaw puzzle.
It is a jigsaw of Kazimir Malevich’s seminal work of modern art Black Square.
The joke is, of course, that a black square would make for an extremely difficult jigsaw puzzle – it’s bad enough doing the skies in relatively easy ones. So the jigsaw puzzle is in some ways a work of art in its own right.

This version: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art064

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Artist’s muse cartoon

An artist and his muse.

A cartoon showing an artist taking a break from his creative process.
While he’s relaxing a small figure representing his muse wafts in from his studio. He tries to ignore it.

This is a cartoon about the way that the urge to create and the impulse to work can be a bit of a curse for people of a highly creative personality type. Their thought processes just never give the a break.
A cartoon about creativit and inspiration.

Cartoon first drawn: 2007
This version: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art066

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Looking at contemporary art cartoon – an optician’s eye test chart

A contemporary artwork composed of an ophthalmologist’s eye test chart.

The cartoon shows visitors to an art gallery looking at a piece of contemporary artwork that takes the form of an optician’s eye test.
They are looking intensely at the artwork in order to try to ‘read’ it in an attempt to understand its meaning. The man is saying that he understands it up to a certain point, that point being where the letters on the eye chart become too small for him to read.
The cartoon is about how to look at art. The artwork could be titled Ways of Seeing.

This version: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art062

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Surrealism cartoon

Modern art disrupting classical art – Man Ray’s Cadeau.

A cartoon illustrating the effect of modern art movements such as surrealism on traditional and classical art.
A man (possibly Man Ray) is slashing a traditional landscape oil painting using Man Ray’s surrealist sculpture Cadeau, a flat iron with a row of nails attached to it.

Original cartoon: 2007
This version: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art061

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Rene Magritte cartoon

Magritte cartoon – pastiche of Golconde.

A cartoon based on the Rene Magritte surrealist painting Golconde in which Magritte is painting a surreal image of raining men. The image seems to be imaginary, however in the cartoon Magritte can be seen to be painting the reality that is in front of him.
A cartoon about surrealism, realism, reality, imagination.

Concept: 2007
Drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art060

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Art galleries for the Instagram generation – cartoon

An art gallery removing classical portraits to replace them with contemporary celebrity selfies.

This cartoon is about contemporary celebrity culture, and its possible impact on art galleries and museums.
In the cartoon the portraits of historically important figures are being removed in order to make way for selfies of social media celebrities of the Instagram generation.
Part of the concept behind the cartoon is the potential debasement of culture due to commercial pressures in order to attract a new audience, on the basis that larger audiences attract more funding or income for art establishments.

Drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art059

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Contemporary art – the primacy of the concept

Contemporary art cartoon – the primacy of concept over aesthetics and execution.

This cartoon is about the way that the contemporary art world sometimes regards the intellectual concept behind a work of art as being in some ways more important than the physical quality and aesthetics of the artwork. The work can sometimes only be appreciated if the concepts behind the work are understood.

Drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art058

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Jeff Koons cartoon – Balloon Dog

Jeff Koons cartoon.

The cartoon shows a Jeff Koons’ Balloon Dog artwork.
The balloon dog has defecated on the art gallery floor, in the form of a balloon.
I first used this idea in a cartoon set in a surreal world of balloon people and balloon animals in 2009, later transferring the concept to the Jeff Koons sculpture.

Drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art057

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Contemporary art cartoon – market value

Accessing the market value of contemporary art.

The cartoon shows a contemporary art dealer assessing the value of an artwork.
He is saying that if it is priced too low it may reflect badly on the work, while a high price would make the work seem like a more desirable purchase for an art collector.

Drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art054

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Humor in contemporary art – a cartoon about pretension in the art world

Humor in contemporary art.

The cartoon shows a visitor to an art gallery giving the reasons why he likes a particular piece of contemporary artwork.
The main reason he likes it is because liking it makes him feel superior to people who don’t like it.
The artwork in the cartoon is a typical trope of a challenging piece of contemporary sculpture, in that the artwork appears to be craftless, ugly and a bit revolting.
The humour in this cartoon is about pretension, snobbery and elitism in the art world.

Cartoon drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art051

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Contemporary sculpture cartoon

Flat pack art.

The cartoon shows a person constructing a piece of sculptural artwork from a flat-pack kit.
The sculpture is in the flatpack form of furniture and fittings available in stores such as Ikea.
The sculpture is labelled as an Ikea Skulptr, in homage to the unusual spelling (to English speakers at least) of Ikea products.

Part of the joke in the cartoon is the contrast between what is often seen as the elitist and high-brow (and expensive) world of contemporary art and the mass market (and cheap) consumerism of shops such as Ikea.
Cartoon drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art050

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Bridget Riley

A cartoon showing two chess pieces admiring a Bridget Riley painting.

The Bridget Riley painting resembles a chess board, hence the chess pieces identify with it.

The painting is in the black and white op art style that Riley employed in the 1960s when pop art was a major genre in the contemporary art world. I believe that Riley didn’t like being labelled a pop artist, so she probably didn’t like being labelled an op artist either.

Original cartoon drawn: 2012
This version: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art028

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Contemporary sculpture cartoon

A cartoon showing a contemporary sculpture.

The sculpture is titled Bogey Man.
It is composed of plaster, glue and bogeys.

The cartoon is about the way that some contemporary art is deliberately disgusting or repulsive.

Cartoon drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art027

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
The art market – art as a financial investment cartoon

A cartoon about the investment in art.

The cartoon shows an investor studying the art market and buying and selling works of art on the basis of their financial value rather than their artistic value.

The caption reads: Sell Abstract Expressionism. Buy Concrete Conceptualism.
I made up the genre of concrete conceptualism, it being an oxymoron.

Cartoon drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art022

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Art in the environment cartoon

A modern art sculpture set in a natural setting.

The cartoon shows a modern art sculpture, similar to the work of Barbara Hepworth or Henry Moore, set in the environment. A bird is nesting in the hole in the sculpture.

The sculpture is titled Art in Nature.
.
Cartoon drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art021

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Art that children like – cartoon

A cartoon about art that children like – such as paintings of ponies.

The cartoon shows a young girl visiting an art gallery and asking if there are any paintings of ponies.
The art gallery is a gallery of contemporary art, and thus contains little or no work that would appeal to children.

The cartoon is partly about the different purposes of art and the different audiences for art.

Cartoon drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art019

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
The emperor’s new clothes – contemporary art cartoon

The emperor’s new clothes – contemporary art cartoon.

The cartoon shows visitors to an art gallery admiring a contemporary work of ark that features a blank canvas.
The artwork is called the Emperor’s new clothes.
The visitors are admiring the detail in the work (even though there’s nothing there).

The cartoon is a comment on the way that people sometimes put on a front to appear to understand concepts and ideas in order to avoid being thought of as stupid or out of touch.

Original version drawn: 2006
This version drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art018

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Seeking artistic inspiration cartoon – the blank canvas

The blank canvas.

This cartoon uses the contemporary art trope of a blank canvas as a finished work of art.

Original cartoon drawn: 2006
This version: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art031

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Understanding contemporary art – cartoon

A cartoon about contemporary art that’s difficult to understand.

The cartoon features someone who pretends to understand a piece of contemporary art that has a deliberately obscure meaning, when in fact he doesn’t.

Cartoon drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art029

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Salvador Dali surreal lobster telephone cartoon

Surrealism cartoon – Salvador Dali lobster telephone and shrimp cell phone

Cartoon showing Salvador Dali’s surrealist telephone, along with a mobile phone that he may have imagined if they had existed then.

Original cartoon drawn: 2010
This version drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art013

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Entertainment in art galleries cartoon

A cartoon about the rise in entertainment-related installations in art galleries.

Over recent years I’ve visited various art galleries where some of the exhibits have resembled fun fair or playground structures.
Examples are the helter-skelter slides and swings that have been installed in Tate Modern at various times.
This cartoon features fun fair dodgems.

Cartoon drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art039

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Artist’s self-portrait about mortality cartoon

Artist’s self-portrait cartoon

Cartoon showing an artist’s final self-portrait.

The self-portrait is the artist’s cremated ashes.
It’s an artwork about mortality.

Cartoon drawn: 2018

Cartoon reference number: art011

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.
Cubism cartoon

Cubism cartoon.

A private view in a contemporary art gallery.
One of the quests is introduced as a cubist He’s a cube.

Cartoon drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art036

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

Modern art

Contemporary art – is meaning more important than quality?

A cartoon concerned with judging modern art or contemporary art by its meaning and by its quality. Because modern and contemporary art often have a cerebral dimension they are often judged by this metric rather than that of aesthetic quality or the quality of execution.

Cartoon drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art078

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art. See the book here.

Picasso painting a portrait.

First version drawn: 2007 This version: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art071

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art. See the book here.

Modern art cartoon – pop-up book of modern sculpture.

The cartoon shows a man in the bookshop of an art gallery opening a book. The book is a pop-up book of modern sculpture. The sculpture is unfolding in the manner of a children’s pop-up book.

Cartoon reference number: art075

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art. See the book here.

Sculpture displayed in an art gallery – cartoon.

The cartoon shows a row of busts displayed in an art gallery or museum. The busts all rest on plinths, as is conventional. However, one of the plinths has feet below it as well as a head above it.

Cartoon drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art074

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art. See the book here.

Contemporary art composed of Rorschach tests.

The cartoon shows three images of the same Rorschach inkblot test image displayed on an art gallery wall. Each image is given a different title based on different possibilities of what the inkblot suggests.

The cartoon is partly about the multiple interpretations that can be made of works of contemporary art. First version drawn: 2017 This version: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art070

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art. See the book here.

A self-absorbed artist and his long suffering wife or partner.

The conflict between the urge to be a creative artist and domestic duties.

Cartoon reference number: art068

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art. See the book here.

Understanding contemporary art cartoon

A cartoon showing a piece of contemporary art on an art gallery wall. It is a text piece, that reads If you think you understand it you don’t understand it. A man looking at the artwork is saying “Of course I understand it.”

Cartoon reference number: art067

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art. See the book here.

Kazimir Malevich cartoon – black square jigsaw puzzle.

This version: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art064

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art. See the book here.

An artist and his muse.

A cartoon showing an artist taking a break from his creative process. While he’s relaxing a small figure representing his muse wafts in from his studio. He tries to ignore it.

This is a cartoon about the way that the urge to create and the impulse to work can be a bit of a curse for people of a highly creative personality type. Their thought processes just never give the a break. A cartoon about creativit and inspiration. Cartoon first drawn: 2007 This version: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art066

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art. See the book here.

A contemporary artwork composed of an ophthalmologist’s eye test chart.

This version: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art062

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art. See the book here.

Modern art disrupting classical art – Man Ray’s Cadeau.

A cartoon illustrating the effect of modern art movements such as surrealism on traditional and classical art. A man (possibly Man Ray) is slashing a traditional landscape oil painting using Man Ray’s surrealist sculpture Cadeau, a flat iron with a row of nails attached to it.

Original cartoon: 2007 This version: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art061

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art. See the book here.

Magritte cartoon – pastiche of Golconde.

Concept: 2007 Drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art060

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art. See the book here.

An art gallery removing classical portraits to replace them with contemporary celebrity selfies.

Drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art059

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art. See the book here.

Contemporary art cartoon – the primacy of concept over aesthetics and execution.

Drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art058

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art. See the book here.

Jeff Koons cartoon.

Drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art057

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art. See the book here.

Accessing the market value of contemporary art.

The cartoon shows a contemporary art dealer assessing the value of an artwork. He is saying that if it is priced too low it may reflect badly on the work, while a high price would make the work seem like a more desirable purchase for an art collector.

Drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art054

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art. See the book here.

Humor in contemporary art.

Cartoon drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art051

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art. See the book here.

Flat pack art.

Part of the joke in the cartoon is the contrast between what is often seen as the elitist and high-brow (and expensive) world of contemporary art and the mass market (and cheap) consumerism of shops such as Ikea. Cartoon drawn: 2019

Cartoon reference number: art050

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art. See the book here.

A cartoon showing two chess pieces admiring a Bridget Riley painting.

A cartoon concerned with judging modern art or contemporary art by its meaning and by its quality.
Because modern and contemporary art often have a cerebral dimension they are often judged by this metric rather than that of aesthetic quality or the quality of execution.

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

First version drawn: 2007
This version: 2019

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

The cartoon shows a man in the bookshop of an art gallery opening a book.
The book is a pop-up book of modern sculpture.
The sculpture is unfolding in the manner of a children’s pop-up book.

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

The cartoon shows a row of busts displayed in an art gallery or museum.
The busts all rest on plinths, as is conventional. However, one of the plinths has feet below it as well as a head above it.

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

The cartoon is partly about the multiple interpretations that can be made of works of contemporary art.

First version drawn: 2017
This version: 2019

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

A cartoon showing a piece of contemporary art on an art gallery wall.
It is a text piece, that reads If you think you understand it you don’t understand it.
A man looking at the artwork is saying “Of course I understand it.”

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

A cartoon showing an artist taking a break from his creative process.
While he’s relaxing a small figure representing his muse wafts in from his studio. He tries to ignore it.

This is a cartoon about the way that the urge to create and the impulse to work can be a bit of a curse for people of a highly creative personality type. Their thought processes just never give the a break.
A cartoon about creativit and inspiration.

Cartoon first drawn: 2007
This version: 2019

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

A cartoon illustrating the effect of modern art movements such as surrealism on traditional and classical art.
A man (possibly Man Ray) is slashing a traditional landscape oil painting using Man Ray’s surrealist sculpture Cadeau, a flat iron with a row of nails attached to it.

Original cartoon: 2007
This version: 2019

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

Concept: 2007
Drawn: 2019

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

The cartoon shows a contemporary art dealer assessing the value of an artwork.
He is saying that if it is priced too low it may reflect badly on the work, while a high price would make the work seem like a more desirable purchase for an art collector.

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

Part of the joke in the cartoon is the contrast between what is often seen as the elitist and high-brow (and expensive) world of contemporary art and the mass market (and cheap) consumerism of shops such as Ikea.
Cartoon drawn: 2019

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

The sculpture is titled Bogey Man.
It is composed of plaster, glue and bogeys.

The cartoon is about the way that some contemporary art is deliberately disgusting or repulsive.

Cartoon drawn: 2019

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

The caption reads: Sell Abstract Expressionism. Buy Concrete Conceptualism.
I made up the genre of concrete conceptualism, it being an oxymoron.

Cartoon drawn: 2019

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

The sculpture is titled Art in Nature.
.
Cartoon drawn: 2019

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

The cartoon shows a young girl visiting an art gallery and asking if there are any paintings of ponies.
The art gallery is a gallery of contemporary art, and thus contains little or no work that would appeal to children.

The cartoon is partly about the different purposes of art and the different audiences for art.

Cartoon drawn: 2019

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

The cartoon shows visitors to an art gallery admiring a contemporary work of ark that features a blank canvas.
The artwork is called the Emperor’s new clothes.
The visitors are admiring the detail in the work (even though there’s nothing there).

The cartoon is a comment on the way that people sometimes put on a front to appear to understand concepts and ideas in order to avoid being thought of as stupid or out of touch.

Original version drawn: 2006
This version drawn: 2019

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.

Original cartoon drawn: 2006
This version: 2019

This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
See the book here.