Among the recent acquisitions of the Library of Congress is the world's largest and most spectacular private collection of original cartoon art. Assembled over the course of 60 years by J. Arthur Wood Jr., the Art Wood Collection of Caricature and Cartoon contains an estimated 36,000 works by more than 2,800 artists and includes a comprehensive array of political cartoons, caricatures, comic strips, humor cartoons, illustrations and animation cels. Virtually every aspect of the genre is represented by leading creators, making the Library’s cartoon collections both comprehensive and unrivaled in the United States.

In addition to animation, the Wood Collection contains illustrations by such well known artists as Miguel Covarrubias. Already an accomplished caricaturist, Covarrubias (1904-1957) dazzled New York when he arrived from his native Mexico in 1923. By 1925 he had become one of Vanity Fair's principal contributors, as renowned as the men and women he drew. In the series “Impossible Interviews,” he brilliantly paired prominent politicians, artists, writers and actors who would never be seen together in real life. Here, he pairs Samuel "Roxy" Rothafel, designer of Radio City Music Hall and the Roxy Theater, with impresario conductor Arturo Toscanini, musical director of the New York Philharmonic.]

This animation cel from Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” is part of this extraordinary collection, some of which can be seen online in a special presentation. “Some Day My Prince Will Come” is one of this motion picture’s most popular songs. While not the first feature-length animated film, “Snow White” was the first American feature-length animated film and the first Technicolor feature. Although produced at the extraordinary cost of $1.5 million during the depths of the Great Depression, “Snow White” paid off handsomely, as it earned $8 million in its first release, a phenomenal sum in 1937.

The acquisition of a portion of the Wood collection was made possible by a generous contribution from H. Fred Krimendahl II, a member of the Madison Council, the Library's private sector advisory group. In addition, the Wood Collection is one of many that have come to the Library through the generosity of the Caroline and Erwin Swann Foundation. The Swann Foundation home page offers links to thousands of fascinating illustrations. "Al Hirschfeld: Beyond Broadway" demonstrates that the master of line drawings had interests far beyond the Broadway theater that he loved and was so closely associated with for 75 years. "Arthur Szyk: Artist for Freedom" features the work of one America's leading political artists during World War II, when he produced hundreds of anti-Axis illustrations and cartoons in aid of the Allied war effort.

These collections are from the 13.6 million items in Library’s Prints and Photographs Division. The division’s home page will introduce you to all there is to explore both online and in its reading room on Capitol Hill.