Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-01-04
CLARE BRIGGS, PORTRAYER
OF EVERYDAY LIFE, is DEAD
CartooniSt Actually Lived
days of Real Sport" He
Exalted in Drawings.
Work Illustrated Ridiculous
ness of People in All
Walks of Life.
By the Associated Press.

BY the Associated Press.
NEW YORK, January Clare
Briggs, who caused many chuckle by
his newspaper cartoons depicting the
human side of American life, died last
night at the Medical Center of pneu-
monia. He was 81 years old.
He had been i'll for the last month
with bronchial pneumonia, but until
few days ago he seemed on the road to
recovery. Yesterday he took a sudden
turn for the worse and died before
members of his family could reach his
bedside.
At the time of his death he was on
the staff OF the New York Herald
Tribune and his work was syndicated
throughout the country.
Last Summer he was threatened with
blindness in his right eye. He UNDER
went an operation for sinus trouble at
Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, and
SIX weeks ago entered the Neurological
Institute OF the New York Medical Cen
ter. He contracted pneumonia while
there.
He will be buried Monday.
Few men have lived more zestfully
than Clare A. Briggs and fewer vet have
shared so widely with the world the
fun of living.
Lived Days of Real Sport"
1t was his keen recollection of his
own childhood life that enabled Briggs
TO delight hundreds of thousands with
Skin-nay," Buck" and the rest of
the small town crew who made up the
cast OF THE Days of Real Sport"
When Teller Needs a Friend" and
his other pictures of boy life.
From boyhood he had shown q talent
Tor drawing, but, as Briggs made clear
IN his book, ''How to Draw Cartoons"
craftsmanship is a woefuIly small part
OF cartooning. In ReedSburg, Wis,
where Briggs was born August S, 1875.
he went to school taught by a Ger
man disciplinarian who tried hard TO
switch the talent out of the stubby,
shock-headed boy.
Forty Cents Week on First Job.
The schoolmaster's opportunity was
limited, however, for Mr. and Mrs. Will
liam P. Briggs moved to Dixon, Ill,
when Briggs was years old, taking
Dixon that Briggs started his news
paper work. When he had been there
only year he got job delivering the
DIXON newspaper to village subscribers
1t paid 40 cents week.
When he was the family moved to
Lincoln, Nebr. Briggs father was an
expert in farm machinery, but farm
machinery did not appeal to Briggs. He
studied from 1894 to 1896 at the Uni
versity Of Nebraska. where John j.
Pershing taught mathematics. While
student, Briggs took up stenography.
and was able to make So a week at
1t when he could find job. He also
Joined a drawing class at a normal
school,
In 1896 Briggs packed portfolio of
drawings and left Nebraska. He went
TO the office of the st. Louis Democrat
and asked Joseph McCullagh, its editor,
for a job. McCullagh offered him $40 a
week and Briggs snapped up the offer.
Photography was still in its infancy,
photo-engraving processes did not yet
form part of the makeup of a news
paper, and the sketch artist was relied
upon for most of the Illustrations in
the daily paper. Briggs was kept busy,
and series Of sketches he did after
the st. Louis cyclone of 1896 won IA
vorable comment and served Tempo
rartly to convince him that he had
found his place in life. Within a year.
however. the half-tone process was per-
fected and the sketch artist could see
That his future in newspaper work was
limited.
Briggs took up cartooning and when
war was declared against Spain took
q Job at $25 a week with the st. Louis
Chronicle. specializing in political car
toons with wartime angle When the
war ended, however. his job did also.
and he went to New York looking for
work and to enter class at Pratt In
stitute, Brooklyn.
Picking Exceedingly Slim.
The picture Of Glare Briggs looking
for job in New York and unable to
md 1t Is a strange one, but true, and
might have been entitled, when a Eel
Ter Needs Friend" Briggs had not
yet found himself He was still a news
paper sketch artist, a dwindlinR clan.
and regarded then with callous glances
because OF the growing popularity of
the half-tone reproduction.
After working as sign painter and
catalogue illustrator Briggs returned to
Lincoln and married Ruth Owen, july
ID, 1900. and then, with new determina-
ton, returned to New York to get a
job. After period of hard Shedding,
Briggs got a job on the New York
Journal, where his work attracted such
attention that he was sent to Chicago
where his work appeared for the next
seven years in the Chicago American
and Examiner.
In 1907 Briggs went to the Chicago
Tribune, and it was from the staff of
that newspaper that he returned to
New York in 1914 to draw for the New
York Tribune, remaining after the con-
solidation OF the Tribune with the New
York Herald, and until the time of his
death.
1t was as a caricaturist of the every-
day things of life that Briggs was
great. and once he had found his line
ne stuck to 1t, though he always was
ready TO lend any of his devices to a
cause which had his sympathy.
Drawings Seldom Preached.
1t was seldom that Briggs had any
preachment In his drawings. His func-
ton was not to harangue but to exaIt
the commonplace. He was consistent
ana IL Is doubtful If any cartooniSt ever
had wider appeal.
Briggs had a fair voice and a better |
ear and his cartoons called THE Male
quartet" were a direct reflection of
paStime which, perhaps, he enjoyed
more than any other. He liked the
Do songs and would sit for hours at a |
Inc air and words and singing them. I
His repertoire was extensive and de- |
cidedly masculine.
There was no malice in his drawing. |
He saw clearly and transcribed hon
estly. He had the ability to recognize /
Immediately In the little customary |
things what was typical of humanity !
as whole and these were the things |
which he put into his cartoons. For !
hundreds of years people had been do
ing these things and seeing others do !
them with scarcely a passing thought |
at the sight.
1t remained for Briggs, with his !
faculty OF seizing upon the climactic |
posture to illustrate the utter ridicu-
lousness Of people, all with the same |
petty emotions and all reacting in pre- |
cisely the same way.