A cartoonist's duel between American Albert Hirschfeld and Mexican Ernesto El Chango García Cabral will take place at the University of Guanajuato (UG) exhibition halls on the occasion of the 51st International Cervantino Festival. Two provincial artists will compete: Hirschfeld (1903-2003), a native of St. Louis, Missouri, and García Cabral (1890-1968), a native of Huatusco, Veracruz, both of whom enjoyed fame in the major capitals of their respective countries.
While Hirschfeld is participating with 70 cartoons, El Chango will do so with 30. Given this apparent disadvantage, it's worth remembering that in 2005, the UG organized a major exhibition on the Huatusqueño artist, curated by Horacio Muñoz. This was the beginning of a major push to rescue the cartoonist and his work, notes Gloria Maldonado Ansó, who co-curated the exhibition with Ernesto García Cabral Sans, the artist's son, who passed away on September 1st. Vicente García Cabral Sans was the sponsor of the new exhibition, "Master of the Line: Stars of Showbiz."
The American artist's exhibition, his first solo exhibition in Mexico, is titled "Legend Online: The Art of Al Hirschfeld," an initiative of Maldonado Ansó and the foundation that bears the other contender's name. The exhibitions are organized through the UG Culture project, directed by Osvaldo Chávez Rodríguez.
Both exhibitions are shown in neighboring rooms and evoke the Mexican television program "Duelo de Dibujantes," which delighted audiences between 1953 and 1961 and even topped the ratings. It featured cartoonists such as Cabral, Rafael La Ranita Freyre, Ernesto Guasp, and Alberto Isaac. Hosted by journalist Agustín Barrios Gómez, it also featured Abel Quezada and Ángel Zamarripa Facha.
