Design and Art Australia Online

cartoonist and illustrator, was the eldest son of Ferdinand Charles Wirgman (1806-57); he was presumably born in London, though his birth certificate is untraced. Although his brother Theodore Blake Wirgman (1848?-1925) was trained at the RA Schools, became a portrait painter and exhibited at the RA, Charles was reputedly self-taught as an artist. Yet drawings sent back to England from Paris dated 1854-55, significantly including My academy dinner (1854), suggest some training and Charles is said to have gone to Paris in 1852 to study painting. In 1857 he was sent to Japan as a correspondent for the Illustrated London News [ ILN ], reportedly from Australia. John Clark, however, is adamant that there is no known Australian connection. In 1856 Wirgman was confused with his uncle Theodore, an army captain who had served in Austria [ sic ], which may explain the mistake.

The records of the ILN were largely destroyed by bombing in WWII, but the only Australian connection found by John Clark, the Wirgman expert, is that Charles’s brother Francis (1837-1870) died there. Moreover, Charles sent articles headed 'En route for China’ back to the ILN from Malta on 13 March 1857 as 'artist and special correspondent’, so must have sailed from England. He was also in Alexandria and the Suez in March, according to ILN illustrations. By 12 May he was dating views from Hong Kong. On 4 July and 10 October works were dated from Manila, the first occasion being a visit taken with Jardine of Jardine Matheson. He was back in Hong Kong by 29 October, then moved to China to record the fall of Canton on 29 December 1857. Yokohama was opened on 2 June 1859, but Wirgman is not supposed to have arrived there until 6 May 1861, having been living in Hong Kong and travelling to record the Chinese wars with the photographer Felice (Felix) Beato (1825/34?-1908?), with whom he was to be in partnership in Yokohama as 'artists and photographers’ in 1864-67.

Charles Wirgman’s Japanese illustrations include the very painterly A Japanese dinner party , published ILN 3 January 1874, 12 (ill. Monet and Japan , NGA cat., 2001, 25). 12 of his views of Japan were lithographed by Hanhart for Alcock’s The Capital of the Tycoon (London, 1863); they include 'From Our Inn at Omura’, 'Halt by the Wayside near Palhiwa’, 'Odah’m 'Scene in a Silk Shop’, 'Wayside Inn near Nagasaki’ and 'Woman of the Yeddo in Winter Dress’. Wirgman married a Japanese woman, Ozawa Kane (probably in 1863), and remained in Japan until his death. He was considered eccentric in dress and behaviour, according to Schodt (p.38), quoting Ernest Satow, one of the first British diplomats in Japan:

“Wirgman’s costume, consisting of wide blue cotton trousers, a loose yellow pongee jacket, no collar, and a conical hat of grey felt, gave rise to a grave discussion as to whether he was really an [ sic ] European, or only a Chinaman after all.”

As well as teaching drawing, watercolour and oil painting (especially watercolours), Wirgman introduced European-style cartoons to Japan. (The next cartoonist was a Frenchman, Ferdinand Georges Bigot (1860-1927), there in 1882-99.) As well as recording major events of the period, Wirgman published the Japan Punch in Yokohama in 1862 and from August 1865 to 1887. It had a Samurai Mr Punch on the cover with a quill instead of a sword. Although simply a ten-page monthly in English with a circulation of about 200, it was printed on special Japanese paper, printed with woodblocks and stitched Japanese-style. Primarily, it consisted of text and a few woodblock cartoons, all by Wirgman himself, mainly about the foreign compound, especially the British community in Yokohama, plus a few drawings about the impact of the West on Japanese life, e.g. February 1886, 39. As the first western-style humour magazine Japan Punch had a tremendous influence on Japanese artists. For instance, Wirgman’s use of word balloons was taken up. Schodt (p.43) gives an example of an 1869 Wirgman cartoon about samurai in awe of their first bicycle being reproduced as the top half of a 'then-and-now’ 1897 cartoon by Kotaro Nagahara. So popular, indeed, was his magazine that a Japanese version was produced. Wirgman is still considered the patron saint of Japanese cartoonists who every year hold a ceremony at his grave in Yokohama.

Wirgman paid a brief visit to Britain in 1887. When he died in Japan in 1891 his age was given as 58.

Writers:

Kerr, Joan

Date written:

1996

Last updated:

2007