The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Politico cartoonist is guest Saturday at tort museum
Matt Wuerker joins Barry Blitt for workshop, meet and greet
WINSTED » As the editorial cartoonist for Politico, Matt Wuerker’s art reaches a worldwide audience and provides a definitive satirical view of the ever changing political landscape. His story serves as inspiration to all artists interested in achieving success in the field of their choice. On Saturday, Wuerker, joined by The New Yorker cartoonist Barry Blitt, will discuss his work and lead a workshop with Blitt at the American Museum of Tort Law.
In his formative years, when Vietnam and Watergate were the headlines of the day, Wuerker found himself drawn to the political side of cartooning. Honing his talent in Los Angeles for his high school newspaper, Wuerker found inspiration in the pages of The Los Angeles Times, learning from chief editorial cartoonist Paul Conrad, who lived in the same community.
A seminal voice for his era, Conrad won three Pulitzer Prizes and was the only cartoonist named on Nixon’s enemy’s list.
Conrad’s wife and Wuerker’s mother were members of the League of Women Voters, and Wuerker’s art found his way into Conrad’s hands. Soon Conrad became a mentor for the aspiring artist.
Wuerker continued creating political artwork for his college newspaper at Lewis and Clark in Portland, Oregon; after college, he began to sell his work on a freelance basis.
“Starting out, there is a whole lot of rejection,” Wuerker said.
In an era before email and fax machines, he knocked on doors and set up meetings with editors. He met with rejection after rejection, but occasionally they would buy some caricatures.
Over time his work as a freelancer grew, and he was selling cartoons to magazines, illustrations and creating some animation work where he found it. Although he wore many different hats, the one constant was the creation of political cartoons — even when they didn’t pay the bills.
At age 50, Wuerker became part of the original founders of Politico, a journalism-media juggernaut that skyrocketed to national prominence as a hub of political information and content. At the time, Wuerker did not know if Politico would last, but from the original staff of 40 at its headquarters in Arlington Va., it grew to become a worldwide institution that now includes news operations in Europe and in New York.
While creating artwork for Politico, Wuerker won his own Pulitzer Prize, as his mentor Paul Conrad had before him.
“There is something special about cartooning that combines good humor and political bite; it’s a particularly effective way to provide a political opinion,” Wuerker said. “A picture is worth a thousand words. In the age where people only want to read 140 characters on Twitter, the political cartoon, as a vehicle for a political point is perfect, because it conveys (a message) in a perfectly wrapped, easily digestible package. It’s enjoyable and a unique form of communication.”
The dynamics of creating political cartoons have changed since Wuerker began his artistic journey. On the plus side of the digital equation, prior to the digital age, Wuerker noted that the highest compliment a cartoonist could receive was when a reader cut out the work from the paper and put it on the refrigerator. Now, a cartoonists’ work can be shared to a world of friends easily online and the feedback can be instantaneous. On the negative side, the news cycle moves so fast that a cartoonist could have an idea for something in the morning and while working on it through the afternoon, something new has happened to make the cartoon less relevant.
Wuerker’s art is a significant part of the American Museum of Tort Law. One exhibit showcases Wuerker’s illustrations of the many court cases that informed the basis of modernday tort law. “It was a real honor to get to contribute to the museum,” said Wuerker. “The museum is a good example of the power of visual humor to convey complex ideas and distill them into intriguing and effective ways.”
For more information about Saturday’s events at the American Museum of Tort Law, and for tickets, go to https://www.tortmuseum.org
To learn more about Politico, visit www.politico.com.