Visit Victoria Art Gallery to see an impressive collection of satirical illustrations from the gallery’s collection, including those of Georgian cartoonists Thomas Rowlandson and John Nixon. Bath artist Perry Harris is showing his own cartoons of Bath and some local watercolour landscapes alongside the main exhibition.
Over 200 of Victoria Art Gallery’s finest satirical artworks, are featured in Mirror of Mirth, an exhibition running at the gallery until 13 April featuring the humorous works of Thomas Rowlandson, John Nixon, and other artists of the era. This exhibition promises to pull back the curtain on 18th-century Bath, exposing the scandals, quirks, and lively social scene of the time with a playful yet revealing lens.
In the late 18th century, London’s craze for satire was at its peak, with Thomas Rowlandson leading the charge. His sharp eye and prolific pencil spared no one among the elite, and when the great and the good escaped to the elegant spa resort of Bath for the season, Rowlandson followed, inviting his friend John Nixon to join him. A merchant and talented amateur artist, Nixon brought his own light-hearted take, and together they captured the quirks of Georgian life, from the wealthy aristocrats to the everyday figures in their shadow.
These comic artworks would have been displayed and sold in print shops around Bath, to the amusement of passers-by. They poked fun at the ‘nouveau riche’ who frequented Bath at the time, and even helped change public perceptions of the politics of the day.
Mirror of Mirth will include the finest satirical works from the Victoria Art Gallery collection, including Rowlandson’s celebrated Comforts of Bath series, a boisterous survey of the activities offered in the city. The teasing observational sketches of Nixon offer a gentler alternative to Rowlandson’s scathing send-ups.
Alongside Mirror of Mirth, the gallery will host a display of work by contemporary artist Perry Harris, a cartoonist and landscape artist who uses paint and digital colour to bring Bath to life. He has worked as a cartoonist for punk fanzines, as a stage scenery painter, an architectural illustrator and an art technician. This selling exhibition will focus on cartoons and watercolours of Perry’s favourite Bath landscapes, including Primrose Hill, the Cotswold Way and Smallcombe Vale.
Perry told us about the exhibition and how he feels about exhibiting alongside Thomas Rowlandson.
As a contemporary satirical illustrator how do you feel about having an exhibition alongside the work of Georgian satirist Thomas Rowlandson?
When I started putting the exhibition together I was unaware of what the exhibition in the main gallery would be, so I was thrilled when I found out. Posting cartoons on social media seems to a 21st-century equivalent of what Georgian cartoonists were doing, so this is something that I’d aspired to be associated with.
What led you to towards your interest in cartoons and satire? And what do you aim to capture in your work?
In the late 1970s I became interested in underground comics and co-created a punk fanzine called Vague, where I first started to draw cartoons. These early cartoons were based on a personal narrative which has largely been the basis of subsequent work. Over 45 years later Vague still exists, with the first compendium published in 2023 and a second due this year. My Bath cartoons tend to be a fairly gentle parody of life in the city.
Has Rowlandson’s work influenced your approach to your own illustrations?
There are a set of drawings called Miseries of London that I really like and I always enjoy seeing his portrayals of Bath. James Gillray – the caricaturist and printmaker famous for his etched political and social satires who was a contemporary of Rowlandson, has probably been a bigger influence. He often plays with scale, so you’ll see crowds of tiny people or stunning dreamlike images.
Posting cartoons on social media feels like a 21st-century equivalent of what Georgian cartoonists were doing
What work are you showing in the exhibition?
The exhibition combines cartoon drawings and watercolours. I had some doubts as to whether showing both these styles together would work, but one day last summer I was in the Oxfam bookshop and there was a copy of Rowlandson: Drawings & Watercolours – I took this as a sign of the way to go!
I had built up a collection of about 1200 Bath cartoons, mainly line drawings that I’d coloured digitally, which creates vibrant images for social media. For the exhibition I have selected some of my favourites and redrawn and hand coloured them. They include a variety of themes, such as the weather and lockdown.
I’ve included one of my drawings created for The Forest of Imagination, which I’ve supported over a number of years, which links with both the Rowlandson Assembly Room images and my landscape watercolours. I’ve also drawn some new cartoons especially for this exhibition.
What is it that makes Bath so special as a subject for your work?
Bath is endlessly inspiring, I’ve tended to use it as a playground for my imagination, selecting a location that I can make anything happen in, such as having giant rabbits leaping around The Circus in the springtime. Going back to Georgian Bath, the surrounding landscape has also been an important part of visiting the city and this is illustrated in the watercolours.
Would you have liked to work as a cartoonist in Rowlandson’s time? And what might your illustrations have looked like?
…I’m not sure, I’ve never supported myself through my artwork, so I would probably be living in dreadful poverty – or if I’d made it would have awful gout! (The drawings would be the same, but without the smartphones.)
How important is the work of satirists in society?
Historically, it has made a huge impact: Gillray probably caused Napoleon more aggravation than most of his enemies and during the two World Wars satire helped hugely to boost morale. It is important for a healthy society to be able to parody itself – humour is something uniquely human (I think!) and should be cherished. The world is changing fast, often making it difficult to know what is satire and what is real. The rapid escalation of AI and the ever evolving world of social media are changing society, so more than ever before I believe it is important to be able to highlight the absurdities of life.