Arthur Sylvanus Bimrose, known as "Art," was the editorial cartoonist for the Oregonian for more than three decades. He was born in Spokane, Washington, in 1912, and his family moved to Portland when he was five years old. After graduating from Grant High School, he studied for a year at the San Francisco Art Institute and briefly attended the University of Oregon, doing contract artwork in both San Francisco and Portland. In 1937, the Oregonian hired him part-time to work on printing plates. His career was interrupted by World War II, when he was drafted in the U.S. Army and served in the South Pacific. Following the sudden death of Oregonian cartoonist (and Bimrose cousin) Ralph Lee in 1947, Bimrose was hired as the Sunday editorial cartoonist. When longtime editorial cartoonist Quincy Scott retired in 1949, Bimrose became the paper's primary cartoonist.
Unlike his predecessor Scott, who had been a conservative Republican, or his successor, the more liberal Jack Ohman, Bimrose was not notably partisan, although his cartoons tended to lean Republican, in accordance with the Oregonian's overall editorial stance. Many of his cartoons included an "everyman" figure, depicted as a mustached man wearing a battered fedora and with a drooping cigar in his mouth.
Among Bimrose's accolades were awards from the Freedoms Foundation, an organization that promoted patriotism and free enterprise. When he officially retired in October 1983, the City of Portland proclaimed an Art Bimrose Appreciation Day.
Bimrose had one son, Jack, with his wife, Olga Ann Radilovich. Bimrose died in Portland, Oregon on September 7, 1998, at the age of 86.
The collection consists of the bulk (though not entirety) of Art Bimrose's work as a political cartoonist for the Oregonian, including roughly 10,000 original ink drawings. In addition to the ink-drawn cartoons, the collection houses Bimrose's rough drafts, newspaper clippings of the published cartoons, and reproduced prints and transparencies. The political cartoons cover a variety of subjects including current events in Oregon, the United States, and the world, social conditions, and periodic cartoons about everyday subjects such as the weather, changes in seasons, the Portland Rose Festival, and taxation.
Collection is open for research.
Art Bimrose political cartoons, Coll 618, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
The Oregonian Publishing Company retains the rights to the materials in this collection. Public usage of any reproducations requires authorization from the Oregonian Publishing Company.
The collection is arranged in the following series: Series 1. Drawn cartoons; Series 2. Rough Drafts; Series 3. Newspaper clippings; Series 4. Reproduced copies of cartoons; Series 5. Other materials.
Gift of Jack Joseph Bimrose, October 2018 (Acc. 29144).
Other collections of Art Bimrose's work held at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library are: Art Bimrose Collection, Mss 5354; and Selected Art Bimrose political cartoons, Coll 787.
Ink drawings that served as the basis for published cartoons. The vast majority of these have blue pencil markings, and include the date when the cartoon would be published.
Collage cartoon of ballot box and newspaper headlines.
Cartoon for January 2, 1969 is erroneously dated as 1/2/68.
Pencil-drawn rough drafts of cartoons.
Includes both pencil-drawn cartoon drafts about specific themes, as well as newspaper clippings of other cartoonists' work on those same things, which Bimrose likely used for inspiration.