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Richard Newton and English Caricature in the 1790s
Richard Newton and English Caricature in the 1790s Author:David Alexander This book marks the rediscovery, in the bicentenary year of his death in 1798, of a master of the burlesque, the caricaturist Richard Newton, who was soon forgotten, in part because of the bawdy nature of many of his prints. From the age of fourteen until his early death at twenty-one, this young Londoner etched a stream of hilarious satires of ... more »royalty, politicians, greedy churchmen, actresses and courtesans. Some of the funniest caricatures ever made on the battle of the sexes are those by Newton. At the same time his large "Progresses," often poignant as well as amusing, played an important part in the development of the narrative print, prefiguring today's comic strip; the goggle eyes seen in many of his images might come from a Disney cartoon. Most of his prints were published by William Holland, a man of literary tastes who wrote the clever dialogues on many of the prints; some of Newton's most fascinating prints are those of Holland and fellow prisoners in Newgate where Holland was imprisoned for his radical activities in 1793-4. The book contains a checklist of three hundred single sheet prints by Newton; sixty are illustrated in color, together with four of his watercolors.« less