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December 20, 2003
Library of Congress Gets Art from Wood
Cartoonist, Avid Collector and Founding Member of the AAEC Donates 35,000 Pieces of Original Art
As a teenager during world war II, Art Wood worked for two years at the Library of Congress. His tasks included staffing the check-in counter, conducting tours, and–eventually–drawing 20 cartoons for an Library handbook.
Sixty years later, Wood is donating more than 35,000 original drawings to the Library of Congress.
"I’ve always had a closeness to the library," he said, adding that about 20 universities had also expressed interest in the collection.
Wood is donating originals by thousands of artists from the U.S. and abroad. A big part of the collection includes the work of famous editorial cartoonists, including Thomas Nast, Honoré Daumier, Rube Goldberg (above) and most of the Pulitzer Prize winners.
There are also numerous comics–such as "Peanuts," "Little Nemo," "Krazy Kat," and "Prince Valiant"–as well as illustrations and animation cels, including art from Walt Disney’s 1937 "Snow White," and Winsor McCay’s historical 1914 film, "Gertie the Dinosaur."
The oldest original dates back to the 1740s, and the entire collection was appraised at between $20 million and $30 million.
The 76-year-old Wood started collecting in 1939, and received many of the cartoons directly from their creators.
He met his peers as editorial cartoonist for papers such as the Washington Star, Richmond News Leader, and Pittsburgh Press; as a founding member and past president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, and as a member of the National Cartoonists Society since 1948.
In an interview to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Wood said whenever he met a fellow cartoonist, Wood would ask for an original drawing, "and I never had one of them turn me down. They would sometimes ask me for one in return. I did a lot of trading."
From around 1950 to 1975, when most people didn’t know how valuable cartoon art would become, Wood got the OK from syndicates to save the best work from piles of originals about to be discarded.
Cartoons that Wood received for free were given to the LOC. Those he purchased were sold to the library; Wood is putting those proceeds into a scholarship fund.
The LOC will make the collection available to researchers on site and online. The art will also be exhibited, with the LOCs first major showing slated for 2005.
Wood, who’s keeping 100 cartoons, previously had his collection displayed at the National Gallery of Caricature and Cartoon Art in Washington. That museum opened in 1995, but shut its doors two years later because of a funding shortage.
"It hurt to close, but I don’t believe in debt," said Wood. The collection went into storage, though cartoons made appearances at venues such as the Newseum. Wood lives in North Bethesda – just a few miles from the Washington-based LOC.
"The Library of Congress is very pleased to accept Mr. Wood’s unparalleled collection, which nearly doubles our holdings of original cartoon and caricature drawings," said Librarian James Billington.
Earlier this year, the LOC received a donation of more than 14,000 Herblock editorial cartoons.
–Sources: Editor & Publisher, Richmond Times-Dispatch