Pat Oliphant, whose syndicated political cartoons anchored editorial pages in newspapers across the country from 1965 to 2015 – many of which are part of his work archived in the University of Virginia’s Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library – died Monday at the age of 90.
Oliphant visited the University several times in his career and participated in events with the Miller Center of Public Affairs. In 2018, he gave the Small Special Collections Library an archive of more than 6,000 of his daily pen-and-ink cartoon drawings, as well as original notebooks, sculptures and paintings. His work was the subject of a major exhibition at the library during the 2019-20 academic year.
“Pat Oliphant was Alexander Pope with a paintbrush, a master of the mock heroic, piercing pomposity with a few swift strokes,” said Ken Hughes, a Miller Center research specialist in the White House and author of two books on former President Richard Nixon.
Political satire is one world that Oliphant’s cartoons visit on a regular basis, including this one featuring former President Ronald Reagan and then Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev. (Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library)
Oliphant spared no president or politician, including presidents Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. In most cartoons, Oliphant drew a tiny trademark penguin, named Punk, in a corner with some added commentary.
Few presidents in Oliphant’s career provided more cartoon fodder than Nixon.
“He captured the fraudulence of Nixon’s ‘peace with honor’ in Vietnam by portraying him as a magician who couldn’t pull a dove out of a hat, finding nothing but a bomb-wielding bird of prey,” Hughes said. “Oliphant’s Watergate cartoons captured Nixon’s menace and bathos, his yearning for greatness undone by his lack of goodness.”
During a 2009 “Conversation with Pat Oliphant” at the Miller Center, Oliphant said he had a tinge of regret about how he drew former U.S. Sen. Robert Dole, who ran unsuccessfully for president.
“For a long time, I was drawing Bob Dole as Dracula,” Oliphant said. “He was billed as a man with no sense of humor and humorless, but as a matter of fact, he had a great sense of humor, a very funny man. I regret drawing him like that. Well, there’s not much regret.”
Oliphant’s cartoon archives feature art that lampoons everyone and everything from presidents to social issues, including this one that addresses development and the environment. (Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library)
During a 2018 visit, Oliphant predicted the fall of newspapers and the internet replacing traditional news organizations.
“Newspapers used to be the center of all sorts of things,” Oliphant said. “In my life – in most people’s lives – newspapers were what you read to know what was going on. The internet has probably changed everybody’s life.”
Hughes said Oliphant’s death is a loss, even though editorial cartoons and the newspapers that published them are not as influential as they once were.
“The pompous pursuers of unaccountable power will sleep easier now that Oliphant’s pen lies still,” he said.
