- Also known as
-
George Cruikshank
-
primary name: Cruikshank, George
-
other name: Knahskiurc, Egroeg
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pseuydonym: Bean, Sawney
- Details
- individual; painter/draughtsman; printmaker; British; Male
- Life dates
- 1792-1878
- Address
- 22 Myddleton Terrace, Pentonville (1829)
- Biography
- Caricaturist, draughtsman on wood, illustrator, etcher and painter. For the method of registering material from the bequest of the artist's widow, see under Eliza Cruikshank.
Drawings by Cruikdhank, where not in the main mounted and unmounted series, are kept in albums (chiefly 199.c.1 to 199.c.10) or with related prints.
Related manuscripts and printed texts are kept (1) in the Prints and Drawings Department Library, see separate catalogue, (2) with related proofs in the unmounted XIXc print series, or (3) before Reid No.1 in the unmounted XIXc print series .
Tracings: The bequest of the artist’s widow Eliza Cruikshank to the British Museum Included a number of drawings on thin tracing paper.
Cruikshank’s tracings appear to have been integral to the development of his prints.
They have been placed alongside the related unmounted proof prints in the British Museum's collection to show how Cruikshank developed his designs; apparently building up a composition from loose initial sketch to a detailed drawing to be transferred to the etching plate (See for example the development of the composition for 'The Gin Juggernauth', Reid 1682.)
The tracings often show careful reworking of gesture and facial expression and include sketched or written marginalia.
Several tracings have been treated to be transferred to another surface which may have been the next level of tracing paper for a further stage in composition drawing or the etching plate. Cruikshank also produced tracings related to his paintings.
Eliza Cruikshank's bequest also includes tracings mounted on fine card . Several of these have been coloured by hand perhaps to indicate a colour scheme to the printer.
George Cruikshank often annotated and signed the tracings, perhaps to support GW Reid's contemporary catalogue of his work (published in 1871) or as a method of protecting the copyright for his designs.
Due to the large numbers of these tracings, they have been catalogued in groups which roughly correspond with the related publication.
- Bibliography
- G Reid, 'A Descriptive Catalogue of the Works of George Cruikshank' 3 vols, 1871
A. M. Cohn, 'George Cruikshank, A Catalogue Raisonné', 1924
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