George Cruikshank

Works by this Artist

Bottle is Brought Out for the First Time
George Cruikshank, 1847

Gin-Crazed Girl Commits Suicide
George Cruikshank, 1848

Background

son of artist Isaac Cruikshank

Studies

with father

Career

worked for Hannah Humphrey, cartoonist James Gillray’s publisher

1810s – works as cartoonist with publisher William Hone

1820 – paid £100 from English royal treasury to refrain from caricaturing George IV (King of England), but continues anyway

1823 – illustrates first English edition of Grimm’s fairytales (German Popular Stories)

1830s – illustrates Walter Scott’s Waverley novels; Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1831); Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist (1838) and Southey’s Life of Nelson (1830)

1853 – joins temperance movement; George Cruikshank’s Fairy Library published

Important Artworks

Bank Restriction Note, 1819 (Victoria & Albert Musuem, London)

The Bottle, 1847 (print series)

The Drunkard’s Children, 1848 (print series)

Readings:

Evans, Hilary. The Man Who Drew the Drunkard’s Daughter: the Life and Art of George Cruikshank, 1792-1878. London: F. Muller, 1978

Jones, Michael Wynn. George Cruikshank: his Life and London. London: Macmillan, 1978

Wynn Jones, Michael. George Cruikshank: his Life and London. London: Macmillan, 1978