New Hunterian exhibition reveals world’s first comic
A new exhibition opening at the Hunterian Art Gallery next year will reveal the world’s oldest comic.
Comic Invention offers both art lovers and comic fans alike the chance to explore the cultural and historical background of graphic narrative from the earliest times and how we tell stories in pictures. Taking us from the world’s oldest comic to Scooby Doo and Batman, it also reveals new material central to the history of comics.
Looking at graphic narrative in its widest sense, Comic Invention showcases treasures from The Hunterian and beyond, from the ancient Egyptians to Hogarth and contemporary items combining comics with art, manuscripts and objects.
Visitors will discover the culture of comics, seeing them in their broader context. This is a rare opportunity to see works by artists such as Rembrandt, Picasso, Hockney and Warhol alongside the first major display of original drawings by graphic artist Frank Quitely of DC Comics, the most in-demand graphic artist working in the industry today.
Comic Invention also shows that not only is Scotland at the forefront of the comic industry today, it has been throughout history. The exhibition establishes Scotland as the birthplace of comics, highlighting a very important but little known work called The Glasgow Looking Glass of 1825. Arguably the world’s oldest comic, it predates titles like Punch by sixteen years.
Comic Invention presents The Glasgow Looking Glass alongside the original manuscript and the first printed edition of the Swiss comic previously regarded as the very first – Rodolphe Töpffer’s Histoire de Monsier Jabot of c. 1833. Also on show is what is agreed to be the earliest American comic – The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck of 1842. This first public showing worldwide is the result of a prestigious and generous loan from the David Kunzle Collection of Los Angeles.
Other must-see items include an exclusive selection of 20 drawings by Frank Quitely, including original artwork for Batman, New X Men and Superman, displayed in context with Hunterian and Glasgow University Library artefacts such as hieroglyphs from the 6th century BCE and Scotland's oldest complete western manuscript (8th century); special loans including Andy Warhol's Campbell’s Soup, Roy Lichtenstein’s iconic In the Car and work from Turner Prize winner Martin Boyce on display for the first time; 20th-century artworks from the University's collections including prints by Picasso, Rauschenberg, Max Ernst and David Hockney, as well as one of Scots Makar Edwin Morgan's scrapbooks showing horror comics relating to the 1954 'Gorbals Vampire' scandal, and World War I sketches by the recently discovered 'Wilfred Owen of Cartooning', Archie Gilkison.
Comic Invention is at the Hunterian Art Gallery from 18 March until 17 July 2016. Admission is £5.00, £3.00 concession.
Hunterian Art Gallery
University of Glasgow
82 Hillhead Street
Glasgow G12 8QQ
Open Tuesday – Saturday 10.00am – 5.00pm and Sunday 11.00am – 4.00pm
www.glasgow.ac.uk/hunterian
For further information contact the exhibition curators:
Peter Black, Curator, The Hunterian
Peter.Black@glasgow.ac.uk
Professor Laurence Grove, Professor of French and Text/Image Studies, University of Glasgow
Laurence.Grove@glasgow.ac.uk
For images contact:
Harriet Gaston, Communications Manager, The Hunterian
Harriet.Gaston@glasgow.ac.uk
Notes for Editors
The Hunterian is one of the world's leading University museums and one of Scotland’s greatest cultural assets. Built on Dr William Hunter’s founding bequest, The Hunterian collections include scientific instruments used by James Watt, Joseph Lister and Lord Kelvin; outstanding Roman artefacts from the Antonine Wall; major natural and life sciences holdings; Hunter’s own extensive anatomical teaching collection; one of the world’s greatest numismatic collections and impressive ethnographic objects from Captain Cook’s Pacific voyages.
The Hunterian is also home to one of the most distinguished public art collections in Scotland and features the world’s largest permanent display of the work of James McNeill Whistler, the largest single holding of the work of Scottish artist, architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868 – 1928) and The Mackintosh House, the reassembled interiors from his Glasgow home.
First published: 4 December 2015