Punch's artists

Past display archive
June - September 2005

Victorian Galleries

Free

From its first issue in July 1841, the satirical magazine Punch developed into a Victorian institution. Initially, the visual aspect of Punch was confined to tiny woodcuts scattered throughout the columns of text and a full page 'Pencilling' on a social or political theme. Gradually, leading illustrators such as Richard Doyle, John Tenniel and John Leech joined the Punch team and contributed more ambitious 'cartoons'- a term coined by the magazine ­ ranging more broadly across themes taken from contemporary social life and manners.

The display in these showcases focuses on three Punch artists whose association with the magazine extends from the earliest numbers, in the case of Leech, to the 1890s in the work of Charles Keene and George Du Maurier. Each also worked independently but contributing to Punch was at the heart of their careers.