elvis’ golden caricatures volume 4 (shaggin’ the ’50s)

Es­ti­mated reading time is 5 min­utes.

ELVIS’ GOLDEN CAR­I­CA­TURES VOLUME 4 fea­tures still more im­ages of Presley hoppin’ and a‑boppin’ in the ’50s—or at least how mostly modern artists viewed Elvis and the decade! De­spite this being the fourth volume, there is ab­solutely no drop-off in quality!

For more in­for­ma­tion on the art of car­i­ca­tures, refer to the first volume of this se­ries of ar­ti­cles. Each image below has the artist’s name be­neath it—and many are first names only fol­lowed by the last name’s ini­tial. I have hy­per­linked as many of these names to a page that will give you more in­for­ma­tion on the artist as I could find.

I sub­ti­tled this volume “Shaggin’ the ’50s” from Little Richard’s song Rip It Up, which Elvis recorded for his second RCA Victor LP album in Sep­tember 1956. Due to the Austin Powers movies, most people un­der­stand that there is a sexual in­ter­pre­ta­tion to the slang.

But in Richard’s song, the lyric is, “Shag on down by the Union Hall—when the joint starts jumping, I’ll have a ball.” So as a kid, I al­ways heard shag as dancing . . .

 

Artist: Gary Tymon

The artist ap­par­ently did this drawing for a “mas­sive Elvis fan” and in­cluded her in the back­ground, dancing as Elvis sings. Ty­mon’s treat­ment of Presley is so . . . nice, that I am al­most afraid to call it car­i­ca­ture. But it cer­tainly is a good piece to open this edi­tion of Elvis’ Golden Car­i­ca­tures with!

 

 

Artist: Matt Ryder

Elvis-as-James-Dean-as-hood/punk. For those who think that car­i­ca­ture is a small matter, this acrylic painting is on a canvas that is four feet high and three feet wide! This would be an im­posing piece on any­one’s wall.

 

 

Artist: Gabby Cor­reia

I don’t know about you, but I re­flex­ively think “guy” when I think “car­i­ca­turist.” Ms Gabby Cor­reia is the ex­cep­tion to the rule. Be­cause of the white coat and the trimmed side­burns, I am guessing that this rather pen­sive por­trait of Elvis was taken from the filming of Jail­house Rock. Ac­tu­ally, if it wasn’t for the ab­surdly ex­ag­ger­ated hair, this lovely ren­dering would not qualify as a caricature.

 

 

Artist: Fugged­aboudit

Chiaroscuro car­i­catura!

 

 

Artist: Al­berto “Sting” Russo

I don’t know why, but this image of Elvis re­minds ever so slightly of actor Jack Black. (And I swear I haven’t had a drink or toke in years!)

 

 

Artist: un­known

Elvis looks like a youth here, younger than any of the photos of him from the time he signed with Sun Records in 1954. I don’t know what it is about the image, but I find it some­what haunting.

 

 

Artist: Se­bas­tian Kruger

Yeah yeah yeah, as a song (Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear was a bit of fluff for the girls, but that’s not the way Elvis sang it. Readily dis­missed by hard-assed critics who al­ways want to see Presley-the-artist, his vocal on Teddy Bear was sheer genius.

In fact, if Buddy Holly had cut this track in­stead of Elvis, the critics prob­ably would call it ge­nius! Se­bas­tian Kruger stops just short of las­civ­i­ous­ness in his por­trayal of Elvis here.

 

 

Artist: Dan L.

While the overall im­pres­sion from this image is of Elvis in the ’50s, the com­plete lack of side­burns made me move here to the volume of im­ages from the 1960s. Plus, photos of Elvis in a jacket and tie tend to be from the early ’60s.

 

 

Artist: Diego Abe­lenda

The world­li­ness (tired­ness?) in the eyes here would lead me to place this piece in the volume of ’60s car­i­ca­tures, but buddy Jerry Richards as­sures me that the car is a car­i­ca­ture of a 1957 Chevrolet, so Diego’s art will stay here in this ’50s volume.

 

 

Artist: Karen F

This is the only three-dimensional piece that I se­lected: a sculp­ture by Karen F that looks like it would be quite com­fort­able on the wall of an amuse­ment park fun house!

 

 

Artist: Medved

Oh, hell! First it was Jack Black, now I see Bill Clinton in this image of Elvis. I think it’s the eyes (and still, nei­ther dope nor drink brings it upon me).

 

 

Artist: Pablo Morales de los Rios

I tend not to re­spond well to this style of drawing: I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s too squiggly for me. That said, I re­ally like this one—even if EP doesn’t look very ex­cited. (Per­haps it’s be­cause he just re­al­ized he’s about to fall back on his ass . . .)

 

 

Artist: Jota Leal

Pri­vate Presley rarely re­ceives any at­ten­tion from anyone—caricaturists, car­toon­ists, artists, or just fans and writers such as my­self. That Elvis spent time singing and prac­ticing and learning was not all that ev­i­dent a the ses­sion where he cut his first new sides in March 1960.

In fact, had the six tracks recorded then been is­sued as both sides of his first three sin­gles of 1960, the con­ti­nuity be­tween the ‘old’ Elvis and the ‘new’ Elvis could have been main­tained. Then, in April 1960, he recorded It’s Now Or Never and Are You Lone­some Tonight and things were never the same.

 

 

Artist: Daniel Kukic

There are many zombie-Elvis car­i­ca­tures and re­lated art­work on the In­ternet (just type ‘zombie elvis’ into Google). While that’s not my usual cuppa tea, I did want to in­clude this one, as it may be the best of show. Also, I’m not even cer­tain if it qual­i­fies as an Elvis car­i­ca­ture: it’s more a poke at the United States Postal Service.

 

FEA­TURED IMAGE: The art­work at the top of this page is by Spot-On-George, and is taken from one of the most fa­mous photos of Presley per­forming on stage in the 1950s. This was shot on Sep­tember 26, 1956, at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair­grounds (my fifth birthday was three weeks be­fore this but I couldn’t make the gig) and can be found all over the Internet.

De­spite this, I couldn’t find a credit any­where for the pho­tog­ra­pher. Note that I sig­nif­i­cantly dark­ened George’s orig­inal for use as the fea­tured image so that the white print of the title could be read.

 

POST­SCRIP­TU­ALLY, I have planned four vol­umes of car­i­ca­tures of Elvis in the ’50s, and two each for the ’60s and the ’70s. There are at least two artists who have done enough high-quality car­i­ca­tures of Presley to merit a volume of their own, Al Hirschfeld and Al­berto “Sting” Russo. Here are links to the volumes:

The First Pub­lished Car­i­ca­ture of Elvis Presley
Elvis’ Golden Car­i­ca­tures Volume 1 (Rockin’ the 50s)
Elvis’ Golden Car­i­ca­tures Volume 2 (Rollin’ the 50s)
Elvis’ Golden Car­i­ca­tures Volume 3 (Rat­tlin’ the 50s)
Elvis’ Golden Car­i­ca­tures Volume 4 (Shaggin’ the 50s)
Elvis’ Golden Car­i­ca­tures Volume 5 (Stuck on the 60s)
Elvis’ Golden Car­i­ca­tures Volume 6 (Wild in the 60s)
Elvis’ Golden Car­i­ca­tures Volume 7 (Elvis by Hirschfeld)
Elvis’ Golden Car­i­ca­tures Volume 8 (Love Let­ters from the 70s)
Elvis’ Golden Car­i­ca­tures Volume 9 (Aloha from the 70)
Elvis’ Golden Car­i­ca­tures Volume 10 (Elvis by Russo)