The world premiere of Bill Banowsky's documentary "A Wild Art: The Life and Vignettes of Pat Oliphant" will take place on Saturday 14 June at the DC/DOX Film Festival (Washington D.C., USA).
Synopsis
Patrick Oliphant (b. 1935) was a "giant-killer", bravely taking on American presidents, popes and the business class with his powerful pen. Relocating from Australia, Oliphant became America's most famous and feared political cartoonist for five decades. With his biting wit and masterful drawing skills, Oliphant attacked individual and institutional corruption, collusion, greed, hypocrisy and arrogance, regardless of the size or status of his targets.
The 89-minute documentary tells Oliphant's story and celebrated career through interviews with Pat, his family, friends and colleagues, along with a rich trove of archival material and hundreds of his cartoons. The film also traces the history of political cartoons, highlighting the influence and impact cartoonists have had over the centuries, and how, in today's climate of political partisanship and corporate control of the media, voices like Oliphant's are more essential than ever to hold power to account.
About Pat Oliphant
Pat Oliphant won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1966, just two years after leaving his native Australia to begin his career in the United States. Now, thirty years later, he is considered one of the most gifted practitioners in the history of the profession. He has caricatured seven US presidents, from Lyndon Johnson to Bill Clinton, and has offered provocative graphic commentary on prominent social and political issues of the past three decades, including Watergate, Vietnam, the collapse of communism in Europe and the Gulf War. Few artists have had as much influence on the form and content of contemporary American political cartoons.
Oliphant combines two great traditions of political cartooning: the subtle wit and artful detail of the British tradition with the more direct and sober style that persists in the United States.
Source: Library of Congress
In 1990, Pat Oliphant was described by the New York Times in 1990 as "the most influential editorial cartoonist" of his time. He retired in 2015 after a career spanning more than sixty years, focusing primarily on American and global politics, culture and corruption. In addition to thousands of daily editorial cartoons, he also produced dozens of bronze sculptures, as well as works on paper and paintings.
Source: Illustration History. Norman Rockwell Museum
