Robert Cruikshank

Caricature by Cruikshank from 1818

Isaac Robert Cruikshank (born September 27, 1789 in Bloomsbury , † March 13, 1856 in Pentonville ) was an English caricaturist and illustrator. He was the older brother of George Cruikshank , who was also a cartoonist, and the son of Scottish painter and cartoonist Isaac Cruikshank .

Robert Cruikshank attended school in Edgware with his brother . Both were very interested in the theater and together with their friend, the later famous actor Edmund Kean , performed self-written plays. The brothers also enjoyed attending boxing and fencing tournaments, cockfights, and various pub competitions.

Cruikshank was a midshipman on the ship Perseverance of the East India Company . But he did not get along with the captain, and on the return voyage of his first voyage by ship he was left behind on St. Helena , whether on purpose or without, the representations differ. In 1806 he came back to London with a whaler and shocked his family, who were in mourning because they believed he was dead.

In the following years Cruikshank established himself as a painter of portraits and small portraits, but gradually discovered his joy in humorous art. One of his first cartoons is known from 1816, when he made fun of Princess Charlotte . His favorite subjects were the Regency - dandies and their female counterparts, the Prince Regent , whose wife Caroline and other members of the upper class. A popular motif was the then modern hobby horse (balance bike).

By the late 1820s, Robert Cruikshank had built a reputation as a cartoonist, but then he turned increasingly to book illustration. One of the most famous books was The Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn, Esq., And his elegant friend Corinthian Tom, accompanied by Bob Logic, the Oxonian, in their Rambles and Sprees through the Metropolis , briefly called Life in London .

In 1856, Robert Cruikshank, who never reached the level of popularity of his younger brother, fell ill with bronchitis and died. He is buried in Highgate Cemetery .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Robert L. Patten: "Cruikshank, (Isaac) Robert (1789-1856)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press, 2004
2. ^ George Cruikshank, with some account of his brother Robert Cruikshank ', MS memoir, Princeton University

Web links

Commons : Isaac Robert Cruikshank  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Henry Austin Dobson: "Cruikshank, Isaac Robert". In: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 13
• Cruikshank on lib.udel.edu
• Works by the Cruikshank family in the British Museum