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Charles Wirgman (31 August 1832 - 8 February 1891) was an English artist and
cartoonist
A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and ...
, the creator of the ''
Japan Punch
The ''Japan Punch'' was a satirical comic magazine and journal that was authored, illustrated and published by English painter and cartoonist Charles Wirgman from 1862 to 1887. The publication reflected the social context of Bakumatsu Yokohama an ...
'' and illustrator in China and
Meiji period
The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912.
The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...
-Japan for the ''
Illustrated London News
''The Illustrated London News'' appeared first on Saturday 14 May 1842, as the world's first illustrated weekly news magazine. Founded by Herbert Ingram, it appeared weekly until 1971, then less frequently thereafter, and ceased publication in ...
''.
Wirgman was the eldest son of Ferdinand Charles Wirgman (1806–57) and brother of
Theodore Blake Wirgman
Theodore Blake Wirgman (29 April 1848 – 16 January 1925) was a British painter and etcher who moved to London, studied at the Royal Academy Schools, became a painter of history and genre subjects, and worked as a portrait artist for ''The ...
. He married Ozawa Kane in 1863, and the couple had one son.
Wirgman arrived in Japan in 1861 as a correspondent for the ''Illustrated London News'', and resided in
Yokohama
is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...
from 1861 until his death. He published the first magazine in Japan, the ''Japan Punch'', monthly between 1862 and spring 1887. Like its
British namesake, the magazine was written in a humorous, often satirical manner, and was illustrated with Wirgman's cartoons.
Wirgman formed a partnership called "Beato & Wirgman, Artists and Photographers" with
Felice Beato
Felice Beato (1832 – 29 January 1909), also known as Felix Beato, was an Italian–British photographer. He was one of the first people to take photographs in East Asia and one of the first war photographers. He is noted for his genre works, ...
from 1864 to 1867. Wirgman again produced illustrations derived from Beato's photographs while Beato photographed some of Wirgman's sketches and other works.
Wirgman taught western-style drawing and painting techniques to a number of Japanese artists, possibly including the
ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surfac ...
artist
Kobayashi Kiyochika
was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, best known for his colour woodblock prints and newspaper illustrations. His work documents the rapid modernization and Westernization Japan underwent during the Meiji period (1868–1912) and employs a sense of ...
. From 1865 he had
Goseda Yoshimatsu and
Kanō Tomonobu as his pupils. In 1866 he taught
Takahashi Yuichi
was a Japanese painter, noted for his pioneering work in developing the ''yōga'' (Western-style) art movement in late 19th-century Japanese painting.There were many Japanese painters who tried Western painting and Western style painting in the ...
, sponsoring his work for the
International Exposition of 1867. He also was briefly an English tutor, most notably to the future
Admiral Tōgō, then a young cadet.
[Clements, Jonathan. ''Admiral Togo: Nelson of the East'' (2010) p.39]
In the 1860s, he accompanied British envoy Sir
Ernest Satow
Sir Ernest Mason Satow, (30 June 1843 – 26 August 1929), was a British scholar, diplomat and Japanologist.
Satow is better known in Japan than in Britain or the other countries in which he served, where he was known as . He was a key fig ...
on a number of journeys around Japan as described in Satow's ''Diplomat in Japan''.
Wirgman's grave is in the
Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery.
See also
*
Anglo-Japanese relations
The Anglo-Japanese style developed in the United Kingdom through the Victorian period and early Edwardian period from approximately 1851 to the 1910s, when a new appreciation for Japanese design and culture influenced how designers and craftspe ...
*
Georges Ferdinand Bigot
Georges Ferdinand Bigot (7 April 1860 – 10 October 1927) was a French cartoonist, illustrator and artist. Although almost unknown in his native country, Bigot is famous in Japan for his satirical cartoons, which depict life in Meiji period Japa ...
References
* ''The Genius of Mr. Punch: Life in Yokohama's Foreign Settlement: Charles Wirgman and the Japan Punch, 1862-1887'', compiled and annotated by Jozef Rogala, Translations by Hitomi Yamashita, Yurindo Co. Ltd, Yokohama 2004.
External links
Japan and the Illustrated London News- lecture to the Japan Society by Terry Bennett.
1832 births
1891 deaths
British expatriates in Japan
British people of the Second Opium War
English cartoonists
Culture in Yokohama
History of mass media in Japan
Japanese cartoonists
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