For my first exercise on this new unit I have been asked to analyse and reflect on the work of others. I had to choose one character from a list and find a story featuring them.

I chose the character Rupert Bear from the list.

I found a short story of which he is featured in. The short story is called ‘Rupert and the Iceberg’ and it is one of many short stories collated in a book called ‘Rupert’s Adventure Book. There’s a picture of the front cover below:

https://www.lambiek.net/artists/b/bestall.htm

Alfred Bestall, 1st Jan 1940. Rupert’s adventure book. [Princes Risborough]: Daily Express. This book was later republished by Annual Concept Reports in 1992.

Next I had to pick one of the parts of the story and describe it briefly, I should imagine I am describing the work to someone over the phone. I have added the part of the story that I will be describing below:

My Description: “There are four squares (panels). Each image is square and there is a white background of which the four squares sit on top. There is a small amount of text under each image, the font is in italics. The four images are full colour. Reds and blues are the dominant colours. The four squares show a part of the story where a white bear (Rupert) and a man are battling what looks like a winter storm in somewhere like Antarctica, the storm has become too bad and they are forced to turn back and return to their boat”.

Now using the same piece I have to briefly write down how I relate to this work:

I’m not entirely sure how I relate to this work apart from the fact that I like to include animals in my art more that I do people. The line-work is similar to mine in the way that it isn’t completely perfect. Bestall also uses a lot of etching to create depth and movement in his work as do I.

Self Reflection:

Did you find it an easy or difficult task? – I found this task quite easy as it is similar to other research tasks I have completed previously whilst on this course. The part I found quite difficult was when I had to try and relate this work to myself, I had to really think about it.

Did it raise any interesting issues or areas you want to develop further? – I’m not sure if this is how I am supposed to answer this question but when I was researching Rupert the Bear I found a lot of racist stories and drawings in the stories dating back to the 1930’s and 1940’s. Of course there wasn’t a good knowledge of ethnic diversity back then which makes sense but the use of language and the way Bestall drew black people would definitely raise some eyebrows to him being a racist. It would be interesting to research this further and maybe include some other artists in my research too?