Isaac Cruikshank Scottish painter and caricaturist, was born in Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

. His sons Isaac Robert Cruikshank

Isaac Robert Cruikshank

Isaac Robert Cruikshank, sometimes known as Robert Cruikshank was a caricaturist, illustrator, and portrait miniaturist, the less well-known brother of George Cruikshank, both sons of Isaac Cruikshank. Born in Middlesex, where he and his brother George attended school in Edgware...

 (1789–1856) and George Cruikshank

George Cruikshank

George Cruikshank was a British caricaturist and book illustrator, praised as the "modern Hogarth" during his life. His book illustrations for his friend Charles Dickens, and many other authors, reached an international audience.-Early life:Cruikshank was born in London...

 also became artists, and the latter in particular achieved fame as an illustrator

Illustrator

An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...

 and caricaturist. Cruikshank is known for his social and political satire.

His parents were Elizabeth Davidson (b. c.1725), daughter of a gardener, and Andrew Crookshanks (c.1725–c.1783), a former customs inspector dispossessed for his role in the Jacobite uprising of 1745. He studied with a local artist, possible John Kay (1742–1826), and travelled with his master to London in 1783. He married Mary MacNaughton (1769–1853) in 1788 and the couple had five known children, two of whom died in infancy. A daughter, Margaret Eliza, also a promising artist, died at the age of eighteen.

Cruikshank's first known publications were etchings of Edinburgh "types", from 1784. He produced illustrations for books about the theatre, did the frontispiece for Witticisms and Jests of Dr Johnson (1791), and illustrated George Shaw's extensive General Zoology (1800–26). His watercolours were exhibited, but in order to make a living it was more lucrative to produce prints and caricatures. He was responsive to the marketplace but firm in his dislikes of Napoleon and political radicals. He and Gillray

James Gillray

James Gillray , was a British caricaturist and printmaker famous for his etched political and social satires, mainly published between 1792 and 1810.- Early life :He was born in Chelsea...

 developed the figure of John Bull

John Bull

John Bull is a national personification of Britain in general and England in particular, especially in political cartoons and similar graphic works. He is usually depicted as a stout, middle-aged man, often wearing a Union Flag waistcoat.-Origin:...

, the nationalistic representation of a solid British yeoman.

Publisher John Roach was a friend and patron, and he later worked with print dealer S. W. Fores and Johnny Fairburn. He also collaborated, with G. M. Woodward, and later, with his son George. (See also G.S. Tregear

G.S. Tregear

Gabriel Shear Tregear was an English publisher of caricatures and prints. Active from the late 1820s until his death, he operated his "Humorous and Sporting Print Shop" from quarters at 123 Cheapside, London...

.)

Cruikshank died of alcohol poisoning at the age of fifty-five as a result of a drinking contest and is buried near his home in London.

Isaac Cruikshank was a contemporary of James Gillray

James Gillray

James Gillray , was a British caricaturist and printmaker famous for his etched political and social satires, mainly published between 1792 and 1810.- Early life :He was born in Chelsea...

 and Thomas Rowlandson

Thomas Rowlandson

Thomas Rowlandson was an English artist and caricaturist.- Biography :Rowlandson was born in Old Jewry, in the City of London. He was the son of a tradesman or city merchant. On leaving school he became a student at the Royal Academy...

, and he was part of what has been called "the Golden Age of British Caricature." Some have called his work "uneven" but at its best it provides a vivid insight into the cultural and political preoccupations of the British during the decades at the turn of the nineteenth century.

Electronic resources

• Cruikshank's work at the National Portrait Gallery
• Isaac Cruikshank at Artcyclopedia
• Isaac Cruikshank - Cartoons

Resources

• The British Museum, the Huntington Library in California, and The Houghton Library at Harvard University all have significant holdings of Cruikshank's work.
• George, Mary Dorothy. Hogarth to Cruikshank: Social Change in Graphic Satire. 1967.
• Nygren, Edward J., ed. Isaac Cruikshank and the Politics of Parody: Watercolors in the Huntington Collection. University of California Press, 2005. ISBN 0873281470; ISBN 978-0873281478
• Patten, Robert L.. “Cruikshank , Isaac (1764–1811).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. 11 May 2007.