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The Clinton Years
Political Cartoons by George Fisher
November 9, 2014 – November 23, 2014
George Fisher, American (Searcy, Arkansas, 1923 – 2003, Little Rock) All I Want is a Simple Yes or No – Are You Running? Jan. 19, 1990, ink, pencil on paper, Arkansas Arts Center Library Collection of George Fisher Cartoons.
The Arkansas Arts Center has enjoyed a long history of support from Bill Clinton and his family, extending back to Clinton’s days as governor of the State of Arkansas and continuing throughout his presidency. The first family would regularly attend museum exhibitions and fundraisers, eat in the restaurant, make purchases in the Museum Shop, and watch productions in the Children’s Theatre. In recognition of the impact of the Children’s Theatre throughout Arkansas, in 1986, then-Governor Clinton presented it with the National Governors’ Association Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts. Clinton knew the Theatre well, having regularly attended productions with daughter Chelsea. The first daughter also participated in the annual Summer Theatre Academy and later performed as a double for Pollyanna in that eponymous production in 1990.
Organized in celebration of the Clinton Presidential Library’s tenth anniversary, The Clinton Years: Political Cartoons by George Fisher features work selected from the more than three thousand drawings contained in the Arts Center’s archive of the long-time Arkansas Gazette political cartoonist. The five cartoons on view in the Lecture Hall Gallery date between 1985 and 1991 and illustrate Fisher’s unique ability to capture the pulse of the social and political climate of his day, and especially that surrounding Bill Clinton as he weighed his decision to pursue the office of the president of the United States.