CBS 2 At The Met

CBS 2 At The Met: Contemporary Prints

NEW YORK (CBS) ― As visitors make their way through the busy corridor of the Robert Wood Johnson Gallery for Drawings and Prints, they'll see what looks a series of colorful prints from the funny papers along the wall.

Associate Curator Samantha Rippner explains. "The artists all share a mutual admiration of cartooning and comic strips and specifically the illustrations of great American cartoonists like Bud Fischer and Walt Disney. And this is just a selection of work by these artists."

About every three months the Met rotates a selection of Modern and Contemporary prints from their permanent collection of more than one million works. "Red Planet J," a 1967 lithograph by H.C. Westerman is the inspiration behind the show.

Rippner says, "He is someone who is particularly influenced by shorthand comic book illustration. He was also influenced by American literature, pulp fiction and specifically science fiction."

Artist Carroll Dunham's wood engraving "Killer" from 2000 may inspire both humor and fear.

"We see a seemingly comic book figure in a very provocative pose holding a gun. You got this sardonic grin on this faceless man. The artist's characters are engaged in activities from the mundane to the absurd to the provocative. And I think this is a wonderful example of this. This figure with this resolute sort of outstretched arms."

Museum visitors might be wondering if there's a reason why the figure has no eyes. Rippner explains to CBS2's Dana Tyler. "There really isn't. This is part of Dunham's way of making his figures. And I think in a way it makes them slightly ominous. And certainly this figure. Well again I said it seems somewhat comic and humorous really I think is a little bit more ominous than one would think."

Another work,, …"Untitled" by Arturo Herrera, may remind visitors of a Jackson Pollack print… But beneath the tangled web of splashy pinks, are cartoon figures from Walt Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. We found one of them.

Rippner points him out, "So here's the figure. His cap here, his profile, his ear. His torso is a little bit obscured but his stomach is here and his feet would be down there.

Snow White, and the Prince are still waiting to be discovered.

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