Galerie Molinas

Cruikshank, was a successful caricaturist. After a brief education at an elementary school in Edgeware, Cruikshank worked with his father in his studio. Richard A. Vogler, the author of The Graphic Works of George Cruikshank (1979) has pointed out that his artistic career began early: "His father earned a living doing drawings from song sheets and caricatures as well as etching plates after his own and other people's designs... As a child he produced some children's lottery prints and illustrations for chapbooks, a kind of commercial work he continued for several years."Cruikshank wanted to study at the Royal Academy, but his father insisted that he needed his help in the studio. He taught him the rudiments of etching into copperplates; at the age of thirteen he was executing the titles of his father's caricatures, and also putting in backgrounds, furnishings, and dialogue.Cruikshank's biographer, Robert L. Patten, has argued: "When, on 1st February 1803, Napoleon declared war on Britain... their father, Isaac, joined a Bloomsbury volunteer troupe while Robert and George drilled alongside with blackened mop handles and toy drums. Shortly thereafter Robert went to sea as a midshipman in the East India service; marooned on St Helena, he was given up for dead by his family until he returned, alive, in January 1806, having heard the fateful news of Trafalgar while on his way home. During Robert's absence, George aspired to replace him as a seaman. But Isaac's health was deteriorating, and he needed his son's assistance. Reluctantly, George agreed to remain in the studio, even hiding out on occasion from press-gangs."By 1808 Cruikshank had developed his own style and was signing his prints with his full patronym: "G. Cruikshank". He produced hundreds of designs for advertisements and songheads. Principal patrons were Robert Laurie, Jemmy Whittle and Johnny Fairburn, one of the main printsellers in London. Inspired by the work of William Hogarth, Thomas Rowlandson and James Gillray, Cruikshank developed a reputation for his anti-establishment caricatures.In early April 1811 Isaac Cruikshank, who was an alcoholic, won a drinking match and afterwards collapsed from acute alcoholic poisoning. He died a few days later. George was now the principal breadwinner and looked after his sister and mother until their deaths