Each week american artifacts takes americans through history. Its bar, off the record, is decoraorated with political ca n cartoo cartoons. Even the coasters are updated with opportunity political characatures. The hotel was built in 1928 on the sight of the residence itself. And after relinquished their rights to the sight, a warden who is the Development Built this hotel along with the hotel which today is the st. Regis. It has been in existence since 1928. With my arrival in 1999, this bar was already known as off the record, a place to be seen but not heard. It was not in this color and format, but it was pretty similar, and it is like the speak easy place and it is becoming public over the years. The decorations displayed from various artists dating back to a collecti collection. From what iz know the previous ownership in the 80s and the 90s decided to bring in some art work after having a few beers in the bar. And that is how it really established, but we built up on this now. We are using local artists and briez winning artists to continue the tradition of locating political art through the bar. My understanding is that this goes back to about 2,000 when you did the bar here at the hotel and they did this classic washington cigar den. Back then you could smoke in bars in washington. They did it with the wing back chairs, the velvet booths, and someone had the brainstorm to do cartoons for art. And the original election in walls was from a collection of cartoons that was donated to the library of congress and he made an arrangement with the motel to loan them a bunch of classic clark katur charactures. And i got involved in 2008 thanks to my Buddy Richard thompson when they wanted to update the characatures and there was a big gap, and what started happening in the bar was people would come in and the newer clients didnt recognize the people from the nixon and reagan administration. So they wanted people from clinton and obama administrations. So that is when Richard Thompson who unfortunately passed away, and he was really the top flight at the time. He did a lot for u. S. News and world report and the new yorker, so richard came in with portfolio drawings, and they got some, and they wanted more, and they said check out my friend matt, and they got to fill in some of the more recent political figures. I workeds be a charaturis ch. Im really a political commentator. But i have the advantage of drawing my opinion and ideally express it with a certain amount of humor and the columnist have to deal with using their own words. It is quite true, you know, someone that writes an 800 word essay about tax policies or something, it has to be invested. But the magic of a political cartoon is that you glance at a cartoon, and we have a visual acuity. And you can process a ka socart very quickly. Some people think that political cartooning is going away. That it is an archaic form of political expression. I feel just the opposite. I feel that the political cartoons are the perfect vehicle for our short attention span. And for cartoons it is purely visual and youre not expressing a complicated political opinion, youre just trying to capture a character. A good artist can load that up with other stuff. A political opinion, or maybe some detail, or maybe wry commentary in the setting or the clothing of the characaturist. It is coming from the world to load, and a caricature, youre not just trying to it is a certain edgy humor, hopefully, and a little commentary and if you do it right you get more than just the physical attributes. I was lucky to grow up in los angeles, and when i was first interested in cartooning, i got to meet paul conrad. He was one of the giants of the field. One of the most proudly, he was the most proud of being the only that was a clear path, it is sort of unclear if you think about it, but he was very encouraging and inspiring and then, you know, you start out in my teens and 20s, and i would look around and i love the work of pat oliphant. David levine, who is probably, what is the right word . He was pivotal and influential and you still see it in some of these works, he signed vallo, but his name was ed bolten. Levine was a master of the big bubble head and the little body, and then the wry twist with not name there. It is a wonderful collection that spans decades and a century. It goes back to another one of the great grand daddies of political cartooning. Keppler who drew for, i think it was a publisher of puck magazine. Keppler would do beautiful color lithographs that would be two page spreads. And if you remember, it is a standard cartoon of the oil tank with the tentacles of the octopus. It was a work of art. There is a couple kepplers here. Those are probably the oldest, and these in this corner, these are sort of the next ones. They are from the reagan error. And i think that is when richard and i were brought in, and that is when people were failing to recognize jean kerpatrick. Some of the new help will go in and they say well go around, and will you help us. Theyre being asked who are these people. And i say well that is bob dole, and they dont remember bob dole. This wall is a mismash of different work in is Richard Thompson. That is me. These are a couple colored. These are water color images. These are done in the 1970s. Richard thompsons style, i just look at this and it is such a beautiful combination of loose line. He was taking it to his own place. But i am still inspired. Do i a cross hatch and add water color, and richards approach was a classic dip pen. He works in a style that would have fit in perfectly in the 19th century, but is also very modern. You can see the difference that i rely on lots of little lines. The style here. It is done with water color, and he lets the paint render the shapes. It sch interesting, this wap gets a lot of attention. This is stopped, and this ball, right by the door gets a lot of attention. Here is a shameless self promotion that i did way back in the very beginning. One of our reporters did a piece about odd couples in washington. People you would not expect to find, say, getting a drink at the bar, so of course this is when i started doing stuff. This is rahm emanuel and Mitch Mcconnell and i situated them in this bar. This is back when rahm was chief of staff at the white house for obama. Sometimes that happens. Here is biden. Also one of mine, and a couple more of Richard Thompson and laura bush. It is simple, but it is annoying and wonderful. But in the corner, that is our trump that kevin keller, who draws for the economist drew with a twitter bird on his shoulder. In the bar, 75 of what is on the wall is really straight caricatures. This corner has within by eer you can immediately tell the difference in that we have word bubbles and captions. There is more information and opinion. This is a good cartoon built around a clever visual. This is a boxing ring with palestine and you see the old reves from the boxing ring, bush, clinton, bush again, reagan, all beat up. And it is a lovely example of how you can take a very complicated political issue, but you can distill it down to a nice visual nugget that conveys the complexity quickly. This is next door at the chamber of commerce. All of the money they were spending on the campaign. I should date my cartoons, but i think this is from 2008 they are blasting the democrats with piles and piles of cash. I understand that he likes this cartoon which fills me with mixed emotions. These two are the oldest in the bar, and really they represent the golden age of what you would have found in puck magazine. These were done by keppler. They are color lithographs. Here you have a classic political cartoon, the big thumb of the big interests being held down on the speaker, and it says, the caption down here is very small, the leader of the minority he cant the leader of the minority and he cant get the speakers eye because its under the thumb of the big interests and this is, of course, uncle sam. Uncle sam being the creation of political cartoonists. And i believe most people credit thomas nast with really creating the uncle sam that the rest of us recognize and cartoonists utilize all the time. But this is not this is the actual lithographic print, and the wonderful thing about puck is that they gave cartoonists lots of space. Cartoonists these days we get shrunk down like that when were in print, but back to sort of my optimistic graph of political cartooning, this was perhaps some of the best Color Printing especially at the time to display a political cartoon, but in 2018, cartoonists are working in the digital realm and the big e biggest and retina displays lets us do watercolor and nuance that begins to rival the kind of cartooning you could do on a big scale that kepler got to do. So in some ways were getting back to this kind of cartooning. Who draws for the Washington Post on the digital side and are often animated gifs. She won the Pulitzer Prize i think back in 2000 for her static, political cartoons and it has moved on to animation and i think these were done that she created for the inauguration of obama. Ann has a different style. Shes not a cross hatcher. She actually went to cal arts and is a trained animator. And you can see it in her very strong line style that really stands out. She now works in water color. Adams has a special place in washington. Especially in this bar. The first time i came in the bar was probably 17 years ago ask you can still smoke in bars in washington and this was a smoking bar. This was a cigar bar. We came in on a cold, winter night. And i had just moved to washington from the west coast and was fascinated by the culture of the city, and you walked in here and there was this inversion layer of cigar smoke, and all of these people all dressed up in suits or whatever, sitting around, having conversations in winged back chairs. It was right out of a cartoon and this is the den of inequity that you imagine being in the white house or something and with that, this is the cave. This one booth in the back that they would close off and its theres really no place like it in washington. And then a few years ago, besides providing cartoons to decorate the walls, hans had the idea of doing coasters. So they commissioned original art for these. And tao and anne and myself, every six months or so, will design little caricature cartoons of people who are in the news and are then used for coasters and handed tout people here. Its an interesting exercise in american politics, because certain caricatures like this, this is hillary clinton, you know will be somewhat evergreen. Shes not going anywhere. Some of the other characters we draw, youre not sure if theyre going to be in the news. For instance, sean spicer was an obvious one we were thinking about doing when trump came to town. Fortunately, we didnt do a coaster for spicer because he came and went. Likewise scaramucci and the like. We situated politicos in the bar doing these things and usually add if you can Little Details like this is cals pence caricature, and hes drinking from a beer stein that looks remarkably like donald trump. And heres hillary and bill carrying the luggage and baggage. Anyway, you get the joke. These were done by Ron Covington in the 80s, and covington has a distinctive style. He is a little bit related to the bean style. He took it his own direction. Theres very light cross hatching in here with a lot of gray scale. And theyre beautifully done. Caricatures are a very strange thing. When youre trying to caricature somebody, you exaggerate features and then there are limits to the exaggeration. Some caricaturists are very good at taking it right to the edge as something that you would recognize as that individual. His stuff is like that. Here, Boris Yeltsin is a wonderful extremely exaggerated pushing to the form. Its just wonderful. Here is bird, senator bird from west virginia, jerry brown. Its always fascinating when you work with people. Sometimes ill talk to art students and do work shops with caricature. Its amazing how you dont always have to be so rendered and detailed. A president ial caricature in particular but its true of probably all political figures can become a simple iconic thing. George bush or barack obama, i could draw six lines and people would go, well, thats george bush or theres barack obama. You just once youve done the outline of the face and say the ears with obama, even before you completed it, people can tell what youre drawing. Its a mystical thing. Our facial Recognition Software in our brains is very acute and its one of the things that caricaturists can use to their advantage. It takes a little effort to be nonpartisan when youre doing things for the coasters and stuff. I mean, my instinct and what im paid for at politic ol is to have a political opinion and express it strongly. Same with anne and sam with cal. We have to dial that back, which i also understand is not just that we dont want to unnecessarily roil people when they come in to the bar for a drink or Something Like that, but one of the nice things about washington, theres a lovely word of members about comedy. You can get along. You may disagree politically but you can sit town and have a drink with them. Thats sort of the spirit of the bar and sort of the spirit that i think we all bring to the coasters so well suspend our political opinions and save it for our political cartoons and in this case well have some lighthearted fun with the caricatures and coasters. Were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan3. Tonight we show you historians joan waugh and gary gallagher, who answer the question what caused the civil war. American history tv, tonight, at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan3. Every saturday night, College Classrooms around the country. Why do you all know who lizzie boreden is . Raise your hand if you ever heard of the gene harris murder trial before this class. The deepest cause where well find the true meaning of the revolution was in this transformation that took place in the minds of the american people. Were going to talk about both of these sides of the story here, right . The tools, the techniques of slave owner power. And well also talk about the tools and techniques of power that were practiced by enslaved people. Watch history professors lead discussions with their students on topics ranging from the American Revolution to september 11th. Lectures in history on cspan3, every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv and lectures in history is available as a podcast. Find it where you listen to podcasts. Former white house Staff Members examine the work of political cartoonist pat oliphant, focusing on the presidencies of george h. W. Bush, bill clinton, george w. Bush and include Barack Obamas 2008 election. The university of virginias Miller Center hosted the event