Honoré Daumier was 22 years old when Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, was named the last “King of the French” after the July Revolution of 1830. In addition to his advocacy of industry and business, the “Citizen King” also actively supported freedom of the press. But this had the consequence that, at the end of 1830, the Paris print publishers Gabriel Aubert and Charles Philipon issued the antimonarchical weekly La Caricature, and two years later, the daily newspaper Le Charivari. Thanks to the flat printing technique of the lithograph, developed at the end of the 18th century, it was the world’s first publication to be illustrated on a daily basis. In these papers, Daumier was to publish more than 4,000 prints, mostly political caricatures. This did not always come about without frictions: His exaggerated portrayal of the king as an insatiable glutton and drinker landed him in prison for six months in 1832. Two years later, the publishing of the Rue Transnonain, le 15 avril 1834 edition, in which Daumier showed his solidarity with the anonymous victims of the murderous actions of the state, led to the reintroduction of press censorship and the ban on political caricature in France. Daumier was one of the first artists to give resistance an aesthetic touch. The Kunsthalle Bremen has several hundred prints by Honoré Daumier in its collection.
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