The Derek Bauer Estate Edition is a project dedicated to the extraordinary talent of revered cartoonist and artist Derek Bauer. Bauer was a political cartoonist, graphic activist and artist who became well-known for his inherently irreverent cartoons and caricatures of politicians and other prominent figures during the troubled, apartheid stricken South Africa in the mid 1980’s. His work appeared in an alternative South African newspaper, The Weekly Mail, under the banner “Derek Bauer’s World” where he expressed his fiercely independent and challenging views through the critical art of cartooning. “A beautiful truth in anarchy” is how he labeled his violent, graphic expressions, which he delivered with remarkable coherence and a distinctively angry visual style.

 

Bauer's immaculate graphic skill and talent, combined with his disturbed mind, entertained, irritated, infuriated and delighted readers alike. His works remained untouched for more than a decade after his untimely death in 2001. Bauer’s penmanship and extraordinary legacy could not be ignored for too long. The Derek Bauer Estate Editions is an endeavour to once again showcase his masterly abilities and to pay homage to his art - a much anticipated event and one long overdue according to Hayden Proud, Curator of the Iziko Museums in Cape Town, South Africa.