RALPH STEADMAN "VINTAGE DR. GONZO" 1995

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Description:

• Edition: 413/500
• Screen print
• Date: 1995
• Signed: Hunter S. Thompson & Ralph Steadman
• Blind stamped, lower right
• Sheet: 19 x 17  inches (48.3 x 43.2 cm)
• Framed: 27 x 23 inches (68.6 x 58.2 cm)
• Condition: Excellent
• Framed under glass

The Artist: Ralph Steadman (British, 1936)

Ralph Steadman was born in 1936 in Wallasey...Having completed his National Service in 1954, during which time he completed the Percy V. Bradshaw Press Art School correspondence course, he moved to London and started work as a cartoonist. He went to meet Percy V Bradshaw once and commented that the course was a little old-fashioned. Bradshaw sagely responded “The principles of drawing will always remain the same, dear boy.”

His first cartoon was published in the Manchester Evening Chronicle in 1956...In 1959, frustrated by the limits of his skills, he enrolled at East Ham Technical College to learn the ‘discipline of drawing’. It was here he met his mentor, Leslie Richardson, who taught life drawing. 1960 saw his first appearance in Punch magazine, where he eventually progressed to cover design. In 1961, encouraged by Richardson, he enrolled at the London College of Printing. By this point he was beginning to find the demands of newspaper cartooning too restrictive:

‘Cartooning wasn’t just making a little picture and putting a caption underneath. It’s also something else – a vehicle for expression of some sort, protest, or it’s actually a way of saying something which you cannot necessarily say in words.’

His big break really came in 1970. Having published his first collected book of cartoons, Still Life with Raspberry, with it under his arm, he set off to America to cover the Kentucky Derby for Scanlan’s Monthly, where everything would change on his meeting Hunter S. Thompson. Described as “a Hell’s Angel who had shaved his head,” Steadman set off to meet this maverick journalist at the Kentucky Derby. Legend has it that it took them 3 days to find each other. Ralph often recalls that Hunter commented when they finally met, “Well they said you were weird, but I did not think you would be that weird!”. Warned not to do any of his “filthy scribbling” Ralph almost caused a fight at the Pendennis Club in Lousiville before being maced by Hunter to help him escape.

Together Ralph and Hunter would develop ‘Gonzo’ journalism, where you do not simply cover the story but become the story. So began a lifelong collaboration, including the iconic Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which was originally serialised in Rolling Stone Magazine. Another lifelong association was begun, and Steadman is still listed as Gardening Correspondent for the legendary publication.

Between projects with Hunter, including Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trial ‘72, The Curse of Lono (1983) and Polo is My Life (1994), and numerous pieces for Rolling Stone, Steadman continued to produce his own books, including Sigmund Freud (1979), I Leonardo (1983), The Big I Am (1998), as well as children’s books such as That’s My Dad (1986), No Room to Swing a Cat (1989) and Teddy! Where Are You? (1994).

In between all these Gonzovation projects, Ralph was asked by Vince Gilligan to create the collectors DVD Box Set artwork for his hit series, Breaking Bad. He produced portraits of 7 of the cast members, 6 of which appeared as the DVD box covers. 

(RalphSteadman.com)

The Story: 

"One of Ralph Steadman's most iconic collections of work, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas was his famous collaboration with Hunter S Thompson. The novel is a psychedelic journey to the heart of the American Dream and epitomises the newly emerging Gonzo Journalism, a term coined by Cordoza to express a style of writing whereby instead of simply covering a story, the writer is immersed in the story and becomes subjectively central to it.

Many believe that Ralph was actually present on the infamous trip but Hunter's (or his alter ego, Roaul Duke's) real life travelling companion was in fact lawyer and Chican activist Oscar Zeta Acosta.

Steadman's illustrations however have become part of the novel's appeal and it is almost impossible to think of the book without imagining the crazed artwork." (RalphSteadman.com)

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