Art as a sword: An interview with Roman Genn

By Bernard Chapin
web posted August 16, 2004

Roman Genn is the principal cartoonist for the magazine National
Review, but his drawings have also appeared in The Wall Street
Journal, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, Newsday,
The Los Angeles Times, and Barron's. For those readers who
have never seen his work, they can tour the professional website
he maintains where a healthy sampling of his depictions can be
found. Luckily, he has included several of his color portraits
(which are the most striking) such as this one of Yassir Arafat.

Mr. Genn was raised in communist Russia and displayed artistic
talent from an early age. While in college, his aptitude for
drawing public figures got him into considerable trouble with the
authorities and the unfavorable attention he received from the
police resulted in his being dismissed from school without taking
a degree. Unlike many native born Americans, Mr. Genn has
acute understanding of the freedom we possess in the United
States. He can now draw anyone he wants to and not meet with
any harmful consequences -- at least from the government.

BC: The way in which many readers are familiar with your work
is through National Review where you are a contributing editor.
How important do you feel the art of political caricature is
today? Do you think that depictions of political figures hold the
same power that they did 50 years ago or when Thomas Nast
was all the rage?

RG: The fact that none of the American cartoonists have been
jailed or physically harmed lately, shows that we are useless,
toothless entertainers at best, although some of us, myself
excluding, hold an opinion that they are of some importance and
have the ability to influence others. Besides, to the best of my
knowledge, nobody has been offered $100,000 to leave the
country, the way Nast had been. The only power caricature has
today is the power to prevent columns from bumping into one
other on the printed page.

BC: How did your experiences in Russia, as an involuntary
student at one of Brezhnev's "toddler indoctrination camps"
contribute to your conservative outlook? Does the experience of
living under communism automatically make one a believer in the
free market?

RG: It should, unless you have a total deficiency in the capacity
to make moral judgments.

BC: You must encounter plenty of people who still highly regard
communism and socialism. Does it make any impression on them
when you relay stories from your past? Along these lines, what
do you personally find most exasperating about today's liberals?

RG: Their militant stupidity and lack of historical knowledge. It is
especially irritating considering the abundance of material in any
library or a bookstore available to the public.

I generally think that people are looking more for the
confirmation of their pre-existing opinions rather than acquiring
new ones .I don't think that I suffered all that much, if at all,
however, the stories about the people that I personally knew do
not create anything but annoyance among left-wing demagogues
and underachievers who breathlessly lecture me about Cuban
health care or happy re-education camps in Sandinista
Nicaragua.

Egalite, fraternite, the next thing you know the guillotine is
working overtime…

BC: Do your opinions about a public figure have an impact on
the ease with which you are able to caricature them?

RG: Definitely. Like a peasant who loves and cherishes his cow,
I worry that something bad will happen to, let's say, Arafat – an
illness or worse, God forbid, and I will be untimely robbed of an
easy way to make a couple of bucks.

BC: Is there anybody that you studied repeatedly but still had no
idea how to reproduce on the page? Are some people naturally
caricature resistant?

RG: For whatever reason, I could not get O.J, but then neither
could U.S. Justice.
Unlike U.S Justice though, I finally got him. It is great to be the
cartoonist!

BC: Which political artists had the heaviest impact upon your
work? Further, among your peers, whom do you respect most?

RG: They are mostly lefties. The great Daumier, of course. Pat
Oliphant who is probably the best cartoonist of the 20th century.
David Levine has an astonishing draftsmanship (somehow while
acquiring the talent his political wisdom was sacrificed), Paul
Conrad, Steve Brodner, anybody who has an opinion, sense of
humor and ability to draw well. I also admire some Russians
whose drawings I grew up with: Boris Efimov, Kukryniksy
group, and Vladimir Mochalov.

BC: One critic referred to one of your drawings for the cover of
National Review as "extremely offensive and racist." Can you
share with us some of the most virulent reactions to your art?

RG: I believe, you are referring to Daphne Kwok from the
Ethnic Grievance Industry. She should date more…

The most interesting reactions were ironically to my caricatures
of Stalin that I used to exhibit on the street in Moscow in the late
eighties and nineties. Once a month at least someone with
insulted proletarian consciousness would rip it from the wall and
tear to shreds. Swift physical retaliation followed on my part, so
the enemy became creative and waited until I would take a step
away to consume some alcoholic beverage for the benefit of my
health and warmth. Some of the drawings thus fell victims to
guerilla warfare waged by the ruthless Marxists. Once though, a
Georgian bought a Stalin caricature (Stalin was from Georgia
and is still admired there by many) and ripped it apart in front of
my eyes. That was a rare respect for my right to make a living,
but then Georgians are known for their chivalry.

BC: A New York Times article about you was entitled,
"Caricature in the Age of Political Correctness." Does political
correctness still exert the same pernicious influence that it did a
decade ago? I ask you this in part because of someone
remarking to me the other day, in response to my "Politically
Incorrect and Proud of It" t-shirt, that it "wasn't the eighties
anymore."
 
RG: It has gotten much worse. You cannot draw any remotely
critical caricature of any minority or ethnic group. I am yet to see
any of my drawings of Farrakhan published.

BC: Thank you very much for your time, Roman.

Bernard Chapin is a writer living in Chicago. He can be reached
at bchapafl@hotmail.com.

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