The nice thing about writing regularly for Substack is that it focuses the mind. As part of the Caricature Masterclass that I post on the platform, I recently talked about approaches to caricaturing the body. Doing so crystallized my thinking on the topic in, and I inadvertently awoke the muse…
There’s something evocative about the figures that you see in Prohibition-era photographs. They stare out of the frozen images, across the intervening 100 years, and right into your soul. Whichever side of the law the subjects occupy, there’s a real intensity about them. And in their body language.
It’s in the way members of an exasperated police task force pose with pump-action shotguns, or in the glee with which enforcement officers pour barrels of bootleg booze into the gutters. It’s in the way a gaggle of mobsters and molls stand brazenly with glasses of hooch raised high, or in the nonchalant swagger of hoodlums as they are led handcuffed into a courthouse. I love the cuts of their suits and overcoats, and the tilts of their fedoras and bowties. Even a defiantly grim face in a mugshot can have a kind of romance about it.
I’ve been thinking lately about producing a series of caricature paintings based on the wealth of images from this bullet-riddled period of U.S. history. I’m as British as warm beer, so I have no idea why it appeals to me so much. (On one occasion, I even visited Al Capone’s grave in Chicago.) But I feel compelled to break out the brushes and see where it goes.
As you can tell by the smattering of images here, I have dabbled with cops and robbers before, often in the shape of their Hollywood alter egos, as portrayed in many a film noir from the mid-20th century. I recently started a painting of Liam Neeson and Colm Meaney, who both starred in a recent Philip Marlowe detective movie. It was a leaden offering, but it was somewhat redeemed for me by one great moment in which both characters sit deep in thought in a diner that looked like it had been conjured up by Edward Hopper.
But I have never gone back to the source. I want to use the photographic historical record as the basis for an attempt to capture the feel of the era through full-figure caricatures. It was the golden age of American newspapers, and especially press photographers, so inspiration won’t run dry any time soon,.
We’ll see how it goes, and I’ll keep you posted.
“When I sell liquor, it's bootlegging. When my patrons serve it on a silver tray on Lakeshore Drive, it's hospitality.”
Al Capone.
This will be a really cool project!