Political Art, Ralph Steadman

Angry Expressive

Ralph Steadman

Born in 1936, Ralph Steadman began his career as a cartoonish and through the years has diversified and adapted into different fields of art. He is an artist, writer, sculptor, cartoonist and designer and he has illustareted for classics such as Alice in Wonderland, Treasure Island and Animal Farm.

He has also been known for his vicious attacks on politicians who let their sense of importance get in the ay of their duty to the people. But in 1997 he stopped drawing caricatures of politicians as he felt it fuelled their egos and enjoyed the attention too much. He began a campaign in the new Statesmen of only drawing politicians legs and bums reducing them.

Figure 1 - Ralph Steadman 'Angry Pen'

Figure 2 - Ralph Steadman 'Angry Pen'

His methodologies for these arts and what he continues to do now are as follows. He expressed himself through art with bold techniques in a way that cannot be said in words. He has a range of techniques, all are very expressive slapping ink onto paper in 3 splashes to create a base and then blotting the paper afterwards. He uses his work as a way to express resent which by making his images expressive the resent is on the paper. [1]

'I clean it out, if I feel resent I get rid of it' 'I don't want to feel resentful to anybody, not even to a politician'

The sattire boom took off in the 60s and Steadman was caught up in it. Hurting people no physically but he hoped he was upsetting people intellectually.His methodologies continue through going straight in with ink and no pencil marks. 'No such thing as a mistake'.

"You don't pencil in anything; you just start going and see where it leads you," he says. "It's an adventure, a little journey. Every drawing is a kind of journey. There's an organic quality that is quite potent, you know. You surprise yourself, and that's quite nice.'' - Ralph Steadman from 

Dowell, P. (2014) Artist Ralph Steadman: A nice man, for A pictorial assassin. 

Looking into politics and the array of characters I chose Nigel Farrage as someone that I wanted to 'let some angry out of my sys yet on' and use Steadman's techniques to do so.

Figure 3 - Nigel Farage 

After analysing Steadman's techniques I started with three splurges of black ink across the page. Then I used acrylics in black and red with the addition of brown ink and i used the colours and resources to recreate the image of Farage in an expression and personal way. The result was free and scruffy and I enjoyed using no pencil and just going all in with the materials. Steadman's work and wisdom is inspirational and I have enjoyed practicing this particular methodology. 

Figure 4 - My own 'Angry Pen' techniques 

Image references

Figure 1 - 2 - Ralph Steadman Art Collection (2011a)

Figure 3 - Local, T. (2016) Nigel Farage

Bibliography

- Dowell, P. (2014) Artist Ralph Steadman: A nice man, for A pictorial assassin. Available at: http://www.npr.org/2014/04/27/307285367/artist-ralph-steadman-a-nice-man-for-a-pictorial-assassin (Accessed: 11 December 2016).

- Local, T. (2016) Nigel Farage to speak at Swedish nationalists’ gala. Available at: http://www.thelocal.se/20160923/nigel-farage-to-speak-at-swedish-far-right-freedom-awards (Accessed: 11 December 2016).

- Ralph Steadman Art Collection (2011a) Available at: http://www.ralphsteadmanartcollection.com/collection-view.asp?collection_urn=129 (Accessed: 11 December 2016).

- Ralph Steadman Art Collection (2011b) Available at: http://www.ralphsteadmanartcollection.com (Accessed: 11 December 2016).

Video Bibliography

[1] The Economist (2013) The art of Ralph Steadman: A savage satirist. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6omL2ukk9c&t=4s (Accessed: 11 December 2016).

- Movieclips Film Festivals & Indie Films (2014) For no good reason official trailer 2 (2013) - Johnny Depp, Ralph Steadman documentary HD. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n5E1xZtaJY (Accessed: 11 December 2016).

- PRI Public Radio International (2014) The world: Ralph Steadman at home. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg38VvhPeCs (Accessed: 11 December 2016).