All for Laughs: The Artists of the Famous Cartoonist Course

During the mid-twentieth century, cartooning was a market-driven opportunity for artists interested in pursuing a career in the field. Widely disseminated to an appreciative intergenerational audience, strips, gag cartoons, and humorous drawings were published in magazines and all the daily newspapers, and were prominently featured in advertisements for a wide range of products. The prospects for enthusiastic, well-trained comic artists appeared to be limitless.

Responding to public interest, the Famous Artists Cartoon Course was launched in 1956, an outgrowth of the successful Famous Artists School’s commercial and fine art correspondence courses that were established in 1948, in Westport, CT. As with the other Famous Artists School courses, including Illustration & Design and Fine Art Painting, popular artists were recruited to create lessons communicating their personal success stories and ways of working, in addition to step-by-step instruction in the basics of cartooning. The list of contributing cartoonists included names that are still familiar today, such as Rube Goldberg, Al Capp, and Milton Caniff.

Comic masters Dick Cavalli, Whitney Darrow Jr., Harry Haenigsen, Willard Mullins, Virgil Partch, and Barney Tobey also brought their unique perspectives and abilities to bear in the Famous Artists Cartoon Course. Though they did little actual teaching or critiquing of student work, tasks that were delegated to the course’s staff artists, they developed curriculum and left behind a trove of their own work. The attitude of these prominent cartoonists toward their students was straightforward. “Whatever your reason for taking this course, have fun with it! Successful cartoonists enjoy their job. You can’t create a funny drawing if you don’t enjoy creating it.”

Generously donated by Magdalen and Robert Livesey of Cortina Learning International, the most recent owners of the Famous Artists School, this selection of process and finished artworks from the Permanent Illustration Collection of the Norman Rockwell Museum offers insights into the creative and technical brilliance of the founding artists of the Famous Artists Cartoon Course, whose influence and approach to visual humor continues to inspire.

“All for Laughs” is organized by the Norman Rockwell Museum. Lead sponsorship is provided by Sordoni Foundation, Inc.

NRM Presents All for Laughs: The Artists of the Famous Cartoonist Course

Stockbridge, MA, February 6, 2025 – Norman Rockwell Museum is excited to announce the opening of a new exhibition, All for Laughs: The Artists of the Famous Cartoonist Course, on Saturday, March 1, 2025. The exhibition, which will run through June 15, 2025, explores the creative genius behind the Famous Artists Cartoonist Course, an influential mid-century training program that shaped generations of cartoonists and contributed to the golden age of American humor…. Read the full press release here!