An extensive family cartoon collection will be available for the general public in a new exhibit at Featherstone Center for the Arts starting this Sunday. The exhibit was curated by Suzy Brown van Dijk and Lisa Brown Langley from their parents archives.
Suzy Brown van Dijk, Lisa Brown Langley and their four siblings grew up surrounded by cartoons. Jokes and illustrations were a part of their lives, framed on the walls of their childhood home.
Their parents, Phil and Eileen Brown, collected the cartoons, which include a number of pieces from The New Yorker and the Daily Mirror. Mr. Brown purchased his first cartoon in 1977 and continued to do so until his death in 1996. Ms. Brown became an avid collector too, continuing to purchase original cartoon illustrations until her death in 2019.
Now, for the first time, this extensive collection will be available for the general public in a new exhibit at Featherstone Center for the Arts starting this Sunday. The exhibit was curated by Ms. Brown van Dijk and Ms. Brown Langley.
When their mother died, the sisters found a letter from their father to Barbara Nicholls, of Nicholls Gallery in New York, where he mentioned wanting to have an exhibit of cartoons on Martha’s Vineyard.
Cartoon by Charles Griffin of Lady Diana playing tennis with Prince Charles.
Cartoon by Charles Griffin of Lady Diana playing tennis with Prince Charles.
“Seeing that letter and some of the other correspondence made me realize this was a passion for him,” said Ms. Brown van Dijk. “It was his art form, collecting and investing in art and artists.”
In preparation for the show, Ms. Brown Langley, who is a photographer, reframed some of the cartoons. She grew up going with her father to have the cartoons framed after he purchased them. She said her father told her that if she wanted to be an artist she should learn how to frame, otherwise she was giving away her profits.
Mr. Brown’s passion for cartoons began long before he started collecting them. He purchased a subscription to the New Yorker as a wedding gift for his wife when they were married in 1954. Years later, he began working with the Nicholls Gallery and Anne Hall, then an editorial staff member at the New Yorker, to buy original copies of many cartoons. When he and Ms. Brown moved to England, he befriended Charles Griffin, a cartoonist known for his work in the Daily Mirror and Punch.
Soon cartoons were everywhere in his life, at home and at his office, where he worked in insurance. When he retired, his office commissioned a cartoon of him standing at his desk surrounded by the cartoons on his wall.
He was also a constant doodler, according to his daughters, and he would make birthday cards every year, pairing work of his own with a poem by his wife.
Ms. Brown van Dijk recalled that even after her father died, she received a birthday doodle and poem for her birthday.
“I was with my mom and she gave me a package,” she said. “It’s his doodling letters.”
In addition to a note, her father included an original Charles Barsotti cartoon. It shows a clown on the phone asking, “What’s the next best medicine?”
John McEnroe losing it, cartoon by Charles Griffin.
John McEnroe losing it, cartoon by Charles Griffin.
“I felt like he was speaking to me,”Ms. Brown van Dijk said. “It was all about, stay positive, Suzy, stay happy. That was my connection to the humor.”
The sisters remembered their parents as caring people who were interested in supporting the arts. Their mother was a volunteer at Featherstone for many years. For the exhibit, Ms. Brown van Dijk, who went into insurance like her father, went through her parents’ cartoon collection and catalogued each piece. She kept track of each artist, publication date and checks her father had sent to pay for each piece as proof of ownership.
“I feel like the cartoons took the grieving journey with us,” Ms. Brown van Dijk said.
The show opens Sunday, with a pubic reception beginning at 4 p.m. Before the doors to the exhibit officially open, the Brown family will host a reunion there.
“We wanted to do a family reunion three or four years ago...but that didn’t come together for various reasons,” Ms. Brown van Dijk said. “Meanwhile, I’m chipping away behind the scenes. We got together last summer, and were like, we’re ready now, and decided to tie it back.”
Ms. Brown Langley said the exhibition is the fulfillment of her parents’ dream.
“The journey to this point has been always bringing them forth and honoring their vision and their hopes, since they couldn’t do it in their lifetime,” Ms. Brown Langley said.
Ms. Brown van Dijk said she hopes visitors find happiness in the cartoons, just as her parents did.
“Finding the joy, and the little silver lining when you can, that’s what gets us through life,” she said. “We hope others will gain as much joy from these cartoons as we do....I think my father would just be, as he would say, chuffed.”
The Phil and Eileen Brown New Yorker Cartoon Collection and Beyond opens at the Featherstone Center for the Arts on Sunday, August 24 and runs until September 15.
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