Viewing R. Crumb

Abstract

In this chapter, Kim A. Munson explores how Robert Crumb and his work has been represented in a series of museum exhibitions. In the 2009-2010 exhibition “Compass in Hand: Selections from The Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection” at the Museum of Modern Art (NY), for example, one gallery focused on drawings inspired by underground comix by Crumb and S. Clay Wilson. Other exhibits of Crumb’s work place him within more traditional art historical contexts. R. Crumb’s “Book of Genesis” was a tour de force exhibition shown in the US and internationally in several formats, and placed Crumb in an immediately recognizable artistic tradition. “Graphic Masters,” on display at the Seattle Museum of Art in 2016, also put Crumb’s work in an art historical context, showing the complete "Genesis" along with drawings and engravings by masters like Rembrandt, Dürer, Hogarth, and Picasso. “Masters of American Comics,” the popular and controversial 2005-2006 group exhibit in Los Angeles (Hammer Museum), positioned Crumb as one of the 15 chosen “masters,” placing him within the show’s canon of comics artists alongside Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, Art Spiegelman, and Chris Ware. By looking at these exhibitions, we can see not only Crumb's influence on fine art, but also the evolving relationship between comics art and the art museum, as well as his influence on other artists.