George Cruikshank's Life, Times and Art: Volume II: 1835-1878

. He is the author of Charles Dickens and His Publishers and of many essays on Cruikshank and Dickens. Robert L. This project received support from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities Center, the Centre for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, and the Swann Foundation for Caricature and Cartoon. Patten is a professor of English at Rice University

The intertwining of charity and art, Temperance and propaganda, children's imagination and adult's criticism, Scots heritage and English propriety, complicated and confused Cruikshank's declining years. Beginning in 1847, Cruikshank became a leading advocate of Temperance, producing two dramatic series of prints, a gigantic oil painting, and many other forms of propaganda. Cruikshank's later years were not successful either artistically or financially. Patten's engaging and energetic narrative sorts out the contradictory impulses within Cruikshank's life, times and art. Patten provides the fullest account ever of Cruikshank's many friendships and contextualises his art, showing how the subjects, mediums, treatments, publishers and audiences affected the artist's productions. He was bedevilled by economic crisis, inadequate commissions, and the upkeep of two households - one with his second wife and the other with his mistress and ten children. This volume of the biography foregrounds the changing image of the artist, as he refas

Patten is, as always, a keen observer of the qualities of the artist's work but his critical assessment is integrated into the circumstances surrounding the production. Prof. Dr. "Patten has confronted a huge often baffling mass of Cruikshank's achievement head on meticulous a fine wide-ranging lesson in English history, politics, and publishing. Patten Cruikshank, maybe the most popular English artist in the nineteenth century, is finding at last this recognition he looked for in vain during all of his life." Ridiculosa 4 " gigantic study long-meditated biography. Without Cruikshank, as Patten shows, English comic art - and 19th century English literature - would have been radically different entities." D.J. The biographical narrative is central, but Patten ensures that the supplementary stories are told. Taylor, The Guardian . Patten's particular achievement is to have look