Chris Madden Cartoons

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  • Tracey Emin cartoon

    Tracey Emin cartoon

    Tracey Emin Unmade Bed cartoon

    A cartoon showing Tracey Emin’s Unmade Bed artwork.

    The child is drawing very well, but the teacher is encouraging her to draw in a more childish way. A cartoon about the holding back of talent.
    First version drawn: 2001
    Cartoon reference number: a929

  • A cartoon about moving image art

    A cartoon about moving image art

    A cartoon about moving image art or video art.

    A cartoon about the (to me) extremely boring and tedious nature of a lot of moving image art and video art.
    I produce moving image art myself, so it’s not that I dislike the artform.

    Cartoon drawn: 2019

    Cartoon reference number: art099
    This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
    See the book here.
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  • Philip Guston kkk controversy – art gallery self-censorship cartoon

    Guston kkk censorship controversy cartoon

    Philip Guston kkk paintings in gallery self-censorship controversy.

    The cartoon depicts Guston’s Klansman paintings being removed from an exhibition.

    A cartoon about the controversy over the proposed postponement of a Philip Guston exhibition containing some of his Ku Klux Klan paintings. The exhibition was set to be staged in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Tate Modern in London, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.
    The decision to postpone the exhibition due to the current social climate is interpreted by some as being an act of self-censorship.
    Drawn: 4th October 2020
    Cartoon reference number: a856

  • But is it art? Cartoon

    But is it art cartoon

    But is it art?

    The cartoon about the cliché phrase ‘But is it art?’
    The cartoon’s use of the cliché is itself is a cliché, so it’s a cliché about a cliché.

    Cartoon drawn: 2019
    Cartoon reference number: art106
    This cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
    See the book here.

  • Repatriation cartoon – museum objects returned to former colonies

    return of museum artifacts - repatriation cartoon

    Should museums return objects to former colonies?

    This cartoon, set on a fictional planet, is about the earthly debate about the return of cultural artefacts in museums to the nations from which they came. Sometimes such objects have been plundered, sometimes obtained due to the leverage of dominance, and sometimes obtained fairly.
    The point that the cartoon is trying to make is that such transactions are rarely as simple as they are portrayed, with one dominant nation or empire invading another land and plundering its cultural wealth. The parameters of this scenario are set too narrowly.
    In many cases the less dominant nation was previously a colonising or imperial force itself, which may have been how it came to be rich enough to produce cultural artifacts of value.
    On my fictional planet for example, the nation that produced the gold artefact had plundered the gold from which it made the object from a country that it had subjugated.
    It can be argued that sophisticated cultures cannot evolve without the dynamic of conquest.

    Drawn: 31st August 2020
    Cartoon reference number: a834

  • Visit my art site to see my non-cartoon work

    contemporary art

    Visit my art site, where you can see the art that I produce other than cartoons.

    The work includes videos, abstract moving image pieces, paintings, sculptural works and more.

    Click the image.

  • Remembrance bench cartoon

    in memory of ... who loved this spot cartoon

    Cartoon showing a bench with remembrance plate on it.

    The plaque on the bench reads “In memory of Bob who loved this spot.”

    The bench is situated in a landscape that is composed exclusively of dots.
    The dots in the cartoon remind me of the art created by Yayoi Kusama.
    Cartoon reference number: a774
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  • Oil painting portrait ‘cut-to-fit’

    cut-down oil painting cartoon

    Cutting a painting to fit a space.

    A cartoon showing a large oil painting that has been cut down in size to fit into a room.

    The oil painting in the cartoon is a grand portrait, cut down so that only the head is mounted on the wall.
    Cartoon drawn: 2016
    Cartoon reference number: a928

  • Banksy parody

    banksy girl with balloon parody - value or price in art market

    Banksy parody.

    Girl with balloon

    A parody of Banksy’s Girl with Balloon image, with the balloon replaced by a £ sign.

    The image was inspired by the sale of the version of Banksy’s Girl with Balloon that shredded itself immediately after it was sold at Sotheby’s for a very large sum of money, thus increasing its value even more.
    Was the work intended to be a protest at the nature of the contemporary art market? And was the fact that the piece immediately increased in value following its shredding part of Banksy’s plan, and a deliberate dig at the art market? Also, was the piece actually supposed to go all the way though the shredder and end up as a pile of spaghetti on the floor but for the fact that the shredder jammed?

    Cartoon reference number: a766

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  • A common view of modern art – the Emperor’s New Clothes

    emperor's new clothes modern art cartoon

    Jokes about art gallery goers admiring blank canvases are a staple for cartoonists who want to satirise modern art or contemporary art.
    Here’s one of my contributions (although I like modern art and contemporary art, and actually do a bit of it myself).

     

    Interestingly, the abstract expressionist painter Ad Reinhardt, who painted canvases that were uniformly black, also worked as a cartoonist who satirised modern art.

    Cartoon reference number: a748

  • Bird in the form of the helmet from a suit of armour

    armour helmet bird drawing

    Bird in the form of the helmet from a suit of armour – dip pen and ink drawing with watercolour wash

    This is a drawing executed in traditional media – a dip pen and ink with tone added using a watercolour wash with a brush.

    Cartoon reference number: a747

  • Museums and art galleries removing art and exhibits due to student grievance – cartoon

    student protest cartoon

    A cartoon about hypercritical student attitudes demanding the removal (deaccessioning) of artworks from galleries.

    A cartoon about woke culture and the trend for students’ grievances and dissatisfactions to be translated into action, such as in the form no platforming or the demands for statues of out-of-favour people to be removed.

    The action is often seen by some as self-righteous, self-indulgent, censorious and intolerant (ironically, as the students often think that they are acting for the greater benefit of others).
    The cartoon shows the danger of the students adopting a feeling of over-entitlement and thus taking their attitudes out into the wider world beyond their colleges.
    The inspiration for this image was a news story about students disapproving of a sculpture by Henry Moore, and demanding that it wasn’t displayed on their university campus.

    The cartoon was drawn in 2016, but it seems even more relevant in 2020 with the woke culture on the ascendency. There are lots of statue removing campaigns going on at the moment (August, 2020) and there’s a bit of a campaign to have a mural by Rex Whistler in Tate Britain removed because a detail of it depicts a black person in chains.
    In 2018 a painting, Hylas and the Nymphs by J W Waterhouse, was removed temporarily from Manchester Art Gallery as part of an art event by Sonia Boyce as a comment on what some people view as inappropriate art for the modern age.

    Drawn: 2016

    Cartoon reference: a734
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  • Hieronymus Bosch cartoon – Bosch washing machine

    heironymus bosch washing machine cartoon

    Hieronymus Bosch cartoon

    Characters like those in Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings leaving a Bosch washing machine.

    This cartoon was inspired by the exhibition of Bosch paintings in the Noordbrabants Museum the city of his birth, ’s-Hertogenbosch
    First published: Private Eye, March 2016.
    Cartoon reference number: a726

  • Mondrian cartoon

    Cartoon - Mondrian art as street map to Mondrian museum

    Mondrian cartoon.

    A cartoon featuring a map showing the location of the Mondrian Museum. The map resembles a Mondrian painting.
    A version of this cartoon featured in an exhibition of cartoons about art in the Chris Beetles Gallery, London, (Summer 2016).

    Cartoon reference number: a075b
    A version of this cartoon features in my book of cartoons about art.
    See the book here.

  • Gender stereotypes in art

    feminist art cartoon - gender in art

    go to art cartoon book

    Cartoon showing a controversial depiction of gender differences in contemporary art

    Depiction of gender in modern art.
    Sculpture titled “Man and Woman” where the woman is a washing-up brush and the man is a hammer.

    The cartoon is an illustration of the staereotypical male and female gender roles, where men perform hard physical tasks and women perform ‘soft’ domestic chores such as washing up.
    Part of the joke is that the male and female roles depicted in the sculpture are extremely conservative, so this particular work of contemporary art is controversial because of its conservatism rather than (more usually with contemporary art) because of radicalism.
    Of course the art work may be a piece of feminist art which is ironically pointing out and questioning the standard gender roles in society.
    The sculpture depicted owes something to Marcel Duchamp, Dada and the use of ‘ready-mades’ in works of art.
    Cartoon created: 2011
    Cartoon reference number: a156b
    cartoon copyright matters
     

  • Sculpture and self portraiture cartoon – self portrait by an artist creating a self portrait of itself in infinite regression

    Sculpture cartoon - self portrait by artist creating infinite regression

    Cartoon showing an artist creating a self portrait.
    The self portrait looks exactly like the artist – right down to the pose.
    The cartoon is partly about the self obsession of(some) artists and about the self-referencial nature of art and the introspection of artists.

    Cartoon showing an artist producing a self portrait that looks exactly like him (including the pose).
    The artist is a sculptor and he is carving a self portrait in stone.

    The joke in the cartoon is that not only is the sculptor carving a statue, but the the sculpture (the self portrait) is also working on a self portrait too (that is just protruding into the righthand side of the cartoon).
    It is a cartoon about infinite regression, where the artist is creating a self portrait that is creating a self portrait that is… and so on. Similar to a mirror reflecting a mirror that reflects the other mire that reflects the other mirror.

    Cartoon reference number: a158
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  • Illustration about food obsession – Magritte cartoon

    food obsession cartoon - Magritte pastiche

    Cartoon about food obsession
    Magritte pastiche cartoon

    A cartoon about eating disorders or obsessive food disorders, drawn as an editorial illustration for an article about the subject in the Guardian newspaper
    The cartoon is based on Rene Magritte’s painting of a person with an apple in front of his face
    The beefburger in front of the woman’s face represents obsession with food

    Notice that the hills in the background are in the form of food, and the clouds in the sky are in the form of loaves of bread – a reference to Magritte
    The cartoon about surrealist art, surrealism, diets, dieting

    Ref: a614

  • Cartoon about art and gender – sculpture depicting traditional gender roles of men and women

    feminist art cartoon - gender in art

    go to art cartoon book

    Cartoon showing a controversial depiction of men and women in contemporary art

    Cartoon depiction of gender in modern art.
    Sculpture titled “Man and Woman” where the woman is a washing-up brush and the man is a hammer.

    The cartoon is an illustration of the standard’ male and female gender roles, where men perform hard physical tasks and women perform domestic chores such as washing up.
    Part of the joke in the cartoon is that the concept of the male and female roles depicted in the sculpture are extremely conservative, so this particular work of art is controversial because of its conservatism rather than because of radicalism (which is the usual reason why modern art is controversial).
    Of course the art work may be a piece of feminist art which is pointing out and questioning the standard gender roles in society. Feminism and art are meant to be the two themes of the cartoon.
    I particularly like the fact that the hammer representing masculinity is hard while the washing-up brush representing femininity is soft. Very much caricatures or cliches of gender characteristics.
    The sculpture depicted owes something to Marcel Duchamp, Dada and the use of ‘ready-mades’ in works of art.
    Cartoon created: 2011
    Cartoon reference number: a156

  • Andy Warhol cartoon. Campbell’s Soup tin cartoon

    andy warhol cartoon - heinz or campbell's soup can

    Modern art cartoon. Andy Warhol Campbells soup tin cartoon

    Andy Warhol cartoon. Campbell’s Soup tin cartoon.

    Cartoon of people looking at an Andy Warhol silkscreen print of a Campbells soup tin in an art gallery.
    One person is saying that Andy warhol created a series of silkscreen prints of Heinz Tomato soup tins as well, but that Campbells bought the lot and they were never seem again.
    Cartoon reference number: a134
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  • Museum and art gallery merchandising cartoon – fridge magnets of exhibits

    museum merchandising cartoon - fridge magnets of artworks

    Cartoon about art gallery and museum mechandising and funding.
    Which works of art would look good on fridge magnets?

    Cartoon showing artworks being considered for use in merchandising

    Cartoon showing a meeting of staff responsible for acquiring artworks in an art gallery considering which works of art to buy, including evaluating the commercial, marketing and merchandising potential of the works of art under consideration.
    The cartoon’s caption reads:
    “It may indeed be a pivotially significant example of early 18th century Flemish art, but as head of merchandising I have to ask ‘What would it look like on a fridge magnet?’”
    It is a cartoon about the commercialisation and commodification of artworks such as paintings and of museum artefacts. The cartoon illustrates the problem of funding art galleries and museums, and the increased reliance on museum gift shops and cafes.
    Cartoon reference number: a152
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  • Cartoon: contemporary sculpture

    Cartoon showing two sculptures in an art gallery. One called Freedom and the other is called Trapped

    Cartoon of sculptures in an art gallery

    One sculpture is called “Freedom” and shows a dancing person. The other is called “Trapped” and shows only arms and legs appearing out of a plinth, as though the figure is trapper inside the plinth

    An illustration about contemporary sculpture

    Original version drawn: 2007
    Cartoon reference number: art101b

  • Questioning modern art – cartoon

    questioning contemporary art cartoon

    Modern art cartoon – what is modern art about?

    Questioning modern or contemporary art

    In this cartoon about modern art or contemporary art a person in an art gallery is looking at a modern art painting of a question mark, and is wondering what the question mark means in the context of the artwork.

    Ref: a663b

  • Michelangelo pastiche – God creating the rabbit

    Michelangelo - God creates the rabbit (pastiche)

    Michelangelo Sistine Chapel pastiche

    A cartoon showing Michelangelo’s God creating the animals – in this case the rabbit

    A pastiche of God creating Adam
    Ref: a642

  • Andy Warhol Brillo cartoon

    Product placement cartoon

    Andy Warhol cartoon

    A cartoon showing one of Andy Warhol’s sculptures of a Brillo Pad carton

    A cartoon about product placement in art
    Ref: a640

  • Abstract art cartoon

    Kandinsky abstract art cartoon

    Understanding abstract art

    A cartoon showing people looking at one of the first abstract paintings and interpreting it by trying to see what it depicts.

    The painting is based on a Kandinsky painting, often thought to be the earliest example of abstract art.
    People instinctively interpret abstract shapes as representing real objects (such as in inkblot tests and clouds).

    Ref: a641

  • Rene Magritte cartoon – this is not an apple

    Rene Magritte pastiche - this is not an apple

    Rene Magritte cartoon

    A pastiche of a surrealist painting by Rene Magritte – This is not an Apple or This is not a Pipe
    (In French: Ceci n’est pas une pomme or Ceci n’est pas une pipe)
    A reference to Apple iPhones and Samsung Galaxy phones

    The image relates to surrealism, surrealist painting, visual puns

    Ref a615

  • Rene Magritte caricature

    Caricature of Rene Magritte

    Rene Magritte caricature based on The Son of Man (French: Le fils de l’homme)

    A Magritte cartoon showing a man holding a mask in front of his face (based on Magritte’s image of a man with an apple in front of his face). The mask is a likeness of Rene Magritte himself.

    An image about surrealist art, artists’ portraits, surealism, modern artists

    Ref a613

  • Naum Gabo cartoon

    naum gabo cartoon

    Naum Gabo cartoon

    Naum Gabo was a Russian born constructivist sculptor.

    He developed a style of sculpture that involved stretching fine nylon filaments between flat planes to form three dimensional mesh effects – a technique which he called stringing.
    Gabo’s family name was Pevsner. He changed his name so that he wouldn’t be confused with his brother, who also produced sculpture in the style of constructivism

    Ref a618

  • Illustration: unlock your creativity: unlock your mind

    Padlock as head - unlocking it releases the imagination

    Bizarre cartoon featuring a padlock as a person’s head or an imaginary creature’s head
    An illustration about unlocking creativity

    A bizarre or surrealist image showing a person or imaginary creature with a head in the form of a padlock.
    The person is holding a key and is saying “Unlock your imagination!”.

    The illustration is about freeing the imagination or liberating the mind to be creative. It is an image to convey the link between creativity and thought processes

    The cartoon has uses as an illustration in art education or in areas of philosophy or psychology.
    For a less bizarre, more child-friendly version of the same concept click here
    Cartoon reference number: a603

  • Rachel Whiteread cartoon

    rachel whiteread cartoon - cast of interior of a shed

    Rachel Whiteread cartoon

    Rachel Whiteread’s art often consists of concrete casts of the interior spaces of rooms.
    Her recent work consists of casts of the inside of garden sheds.
    This idea imagines one of her works in which the walls of the shed have been laid on the floor to give the effect of the shed having collapsed, leaving the concrete ‘shadow’ of the space inside the shed.
    To make the idea humorous I added a glove to the installation, to give the impression of a person trapped under the collapsed shed

    A cartoon about contemporary art, the YBAs (Young British Artists – even though Rachel Whiteread was never a member of the group)

    Cartoon reference number: a600

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