Almanac of Story Tellers: Pat Oliphant

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to story telling -- in prose and in poetry, in art and in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of July 24th

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    It is the 205th day of the year, leaving 160 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1935, the editorial cartoonist Pat Oliphant was born outside of Adelaide, Australia.

    He told his stories in the top right corner of newspapers, first at The Denver Post, then the Washington Star, and through syndication. In the later half of the 20th Century, he was perhaps the most influential cartoonist on the editorial pages, winning a Pulitzer Prize three years after he moved to the United States.

    He started his career in his native country, working first for The News and then The Advertiser, both newspapers in Adelaide. But feeling constrained by conservative slant of the editorial pages there, he applied for and accepted a job in Denver in 1964.

    It's not that he was liberal; he just did not want to be held to a view that was not his own. Later in his career, after the Washington Star ceased publication in 1981, he no longer worked for any specific newspaper, but instead put his work out solely through the Universal Press Syndicate.

    His style is easily recognizable. He was known for his caricatures, particularly of U.S. presidents. He showed Richard Nixon as furtive, dark, and brooding, often making a V for Victory gesture, with his arms thrust out overhead. Barack Obama was a statue on Easter Island, responding to questions with the tone of a bewildering oracle.

    Gerald Ford was portrayed with a bandage on his forehead. Bill Clinton had a bulbous nose. George H.W. Bush clutched his handbag. 

    Oliphant was a skilled drafter and artist. In addition to his editorial cartoons, he drew hundreds of paintings, drawings, and illustrations. He also created several dozen bronze statues, from a collection of seven U.S. presidents, all less than a foot tall, to a larger-than-life statue of Angelina Eberly in Austin, Texas.

    He continued and embodied the tradition of using secondary figures in his cartoons to made asides. His was a penguin he dubbed Punk, who almost always appeared somewhere in his drawings.

    Oliphant retired in 2015 and lives in New Mexico.