Broken Frontier

The Jewish Museum will present innovative comics artist Chris Ware in conversation with City of Chicago Cultural Historian Timothy Samuelson on Thursday, December 7 at 6:30 pm.  Ware’s works include Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, The Acme Novelty Library, and Quimby the Mouse. This program is presented in conjunction with the landmark, two-part exhibition, Masters of American Comics.

Though the history of American newspaper comics generally focuses on New York and the West Coast as its centers of development, the city of Chicago (with its inherent geographical inferiority complex) not only added to, but essentially codified what is thought of as the modern comic strip.  Ware and Samuelson, both Chicagoans, discuss these influences and confluences in terms of the cartoonists presented in the Masters of American Comics exhibition from the turn of the century to the present day.

Tickets are $15 for the general public, $12 for students and senior citizens, and $10 for Jewish Museum members.  For further information regarding programs at The Jewish Museum, the public may call 212.423.3337.  Tickets for programs at The Jewish Museum can now be purchased online at the Museum’s Web site, www.thejewishmuseum.org.  An infrared assistive listening system for the hearing impaired is available for programs in the Museum's S. H. and Helen R. Scheuer Auditorium. 

Chris Ware is a self-taught cartoonist known for his talent for blending painting, typography, music, theater, architecture, and skilled graphic design into the comic medium In the Acme Novelty Library, he used form and design to build upon comics’ tradition, and to find novel ways of narrating stories and revealing emotions. His art reveals how an individual’s experience of the world is keyed by pre-existing images as much as reality.  Many of his plot lines are based on his own life. His work has also been published in The New York Times Magazine.

Timothy Samuelson, former curator of architecture and design at the Chicago Historical Society and now the Cultural Historian of the City of Chicago, is an eminent architectural historian who specializes in the work of Louis Sullivan.

One of America’s great popular art forms is being given its first major museum examination in the landmark, two-part exhibition, Masters of American Comics, on view simultaneously at The Jewish Museum in New York City and The Newark Museum in Newark, New Jersey through January 28, 2007. By focusing on 14 of the most innovative and influential artists, the exhibition vividly conveys how comics have developed into a quintessential component of American culture.  Artists represented are: Winsor McCay, Lyonel Feininger, George Herriman, E.C. Segar, Frank King, Chester Gould, Milton Caniff, Charles M. Schulz, Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, Harvey Kurtzman, R. Crumb, Gary Panter and Chris Ware.  Original artwork from comic strips from the first half of the 20th century are being shown at The Newark Museum, and artwork for comic books from the 1950s onward are being featured at The Jewish Museum.  Masters of American Comics was jointly organized by the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA).

Public Programs at The Jewish Museum are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.  Major annual support is provided by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, A State Agency.  The audio-visual system has been funded by The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Inc.