Library of Congress Opens 'Herblock!' Exhibit

By: Elaine Williams Herb Block, the legendary editorial cartoonist and author whose career spanned 13 presidencies and 72 years, is being commemorated on what would have been his 100th birthday with the opening of an exhibit at the Library of Congress featuring his work.

Beginning Oct. 13, the Library of Congress will display 82 of his previously undisplayed original cartoons in an exhibit called ?Herblock!? that runs through May 1, 2010.

Herblock, as he is more commonly known, began his career as an editorial cartoonist in 1929, at the height of the Great Depression. After starting out at the Chicago Daily News, he worked at the Newspaper Enterprise Association and in 1946 joined the staff of The Washington Post. He stayed at the Post until his death, drawing his last cartoon only six weeks before he died on Oct. 7, 2001.

Herblock is perhaps best known for coining the term ?McCarthyism? and for linking Nixon to the Watergate scandal within weeks of the burglary. He won multiple awards for his illustrated commentary, including three Pulitzer Prizes for his cartooning and another with three of his Washington Post colleagues for their Watergate reporting. He is often cited as an inspiration for many modern editorial cartoonists.

The Library of Congress and the Herb Block Foundation, in association with W.W. Norton & Co., are releasing a book in conjunction with the opening of the exhibit. ?HERBLOCK: The Life and Works of the Great Political Cartoonist? is written by Haynes Johnson and Harry L. Katz and features a DVD with more than 18,000 cartoons on it.