Edmund Siegfried Valtman (May 31, 1914 – January 12, 2005) was an

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

n and

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

editorial cartoonist and winner of the 1962

Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning The Pulitzer Prize for Illustrated Reporting and Commentary is one of the fourteen Pulitzer Prizes that is annually awarded for journalism in the United States. It is the successor to the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning awarded from 1922 t ...

. Born in

Tallinn Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju '' ...

, he sold his first cartoons at age 15 to the children's magazine ''Laste Rõõm''. He worked as an editorial cartoonist for the newspapers ''Eesti Sõna'' and ''Maa Sõna'' and studied at the Tallinn Art and Applied Art School. When the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

reoccupied Estonia in 1944, he and his wife fled the country and spent the next four years in a

displaced persons camp A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for internally displaced peop ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, which was still under the control of Allied occupation forces. They emigrated to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

in 1949. Once in the US, Valtman worked for ''

The Hartford Times ''The Hartford Times'' was a daily afternoon newspaper serving the Hartford, Connecticut, community from 1817 to 1976. It was owned for decades by the Gannett Company which sold the financially struggling paper in 1973 to the owners of the ''New ...

'' from 1951 until his 1975 retirement. He was noted for his caricatures of Cold War-era communist leaders like

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...

and

Leonid Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev; uk, links= no, Леонід Ілліч Брежнєв, . (19 December 1906– 10 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union between 1964 and ...

. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his August 31, 1961 cartoon. It showed Fidel Castro leading a shackled, beaten-down man representing

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

and advising

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

"What You Need, Man, Is a Revolution Like Mine!"Charles, Holden, PhD.
Cold War Wrestling Match

Teachinghistory.org
Accessed 3 July 2011. Valtman died in a Bloomfield, Connecticut retirement home.

Footnotes

External links

*
"Edmund Valtman: The Cartoonist Who Came in from the Cold"
–

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

1914 births 2005 deaths Artists from Tallinn 20th-century Estonian male artists Estonian cartoonists People from the Governorate of Estonia American editorial cartoonists Estonian emigrants to the United States Estonian World War II refugees Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning winners {{US-cartoonist-stub