T hroughout the last century, many artists tried their hand at political cartoons for the press, a genre that gradually gained momentum. 170 of them are featured here.
The collector—obviously a curious man—who assembled this collection sought to create a comprehensive overview of illustrative drawings from 20th-century popular and daily newspapers, as a reflection of French society at the time. Nearly 800 drawings— grouped here into 202 lots —feature the work of 170 artists, almost all of whom are listed in the *Dico Solo* (published by Aedis), the definitive encyclopedic reference on the history of caricature and press illustration in France. As expert Michel Roudillon explains: “With the rise and development of freedom of the press in the 20th-century, humorous drawings, political cartoons, and caricatures broke free from the constraints of restraint—the very same constraints imposed on the artists of the previous century: Honoré Daumier, Paul Gavarni,