Fear and Loathing in DC: Gonzo Illustrator Ralph Steadman’s Life and Work

In the 1970s, so-called gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson was riding high in nearly every sense. His books Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 had made him a counterculture icon, and his caricature repeatedly graced the nation’s newspapers in the form of Uncle Duke, the drug-fueled, gun-packing former Rolling Stone writer in Garry Trudeau’s “Doonesbury” comic strip. But as the ’70s gave way to the ’80s, Thompson’s celebrity far outstripped his wealth. Often in limbo between royalty checks, and believing himself perpetually fleeced by lawyers, the scribe, who made his name by writing for publications like Rolling Stone and Esquire, pinned his financial hopes on Hollywood, where director Art Linson was beginning work on Where the Buffalo Roam, a biopic starring comedian Bill Murray as Thompson. (Full disclosure: I have served as the literary executor of Thompson’s estate; he died by suicide in 2005.)

Prisoner of Denver” class=”external-link external-link-embed__hed-link button” data-event-click='{“element”:”ExternalLink”,”outgoingURL”:”https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/2004/6/prisoner-of-denver”}’ href=”https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/2004/6/prisoner-of-denver” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>From the Archive: Prisoner of DenverArrow Prisoner of Denver” class=”external-link external-link-embed__image-link” data-event-click='{“element”:”ExternalLink”,”outgoingURL”:”https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/2004/6/prisoner-of-denver”}’ href=”https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/2004/6/prisoner-of-denver” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>

The task of creating the film’s poster fell to British artist Ralph Steadman, whose jagged, hallucinatory illustrations had been integral to both Rolling Stone’s aesthetic and the Fear and Loathing books. (Unlike Thompson’s recreational—some would say Olympian—drug use, Steadman chose not to partake.) In the years since, the Thompson-Steadman partnership had become the stuff of legend, like a fire-breathing Butch and Sundance storming through the latter half of the American century, shattering every establishment rule with fearless, hilarious gall.

And so, just as Steadman had been the inevitable choice for marketing Linson’s film, he became the inevitable choice of wingman after Thompson got his first, horrified look at the screenplay draft by John Kaye, with whom Thompson would share screenwriting credit. “Call me at once,” Thompson wrote to Steadman via emergency cable. (Yes, in those days, Thompson often preferred to communicate by telegram, Telex, or fax.) In typically paranoid fashion, Thompson warned: “Cancel all repeat all art and publish contracts in re: Buffalo film until we talk. The buggers are worse than we thought. Brutal dealings with Linson tonite confirms our worst repeat worst fears.… The ravens have come home to roost. Like we always knew they would.… The film is doomed.” Hardly. Bill Murray’s portrayal of Thompson was praised by critics, and even though the movie received mixed reviews, it became something of a cult favorite.

In the half-century since Thompson’s greatest successes and failures, his image and style have inspired a lot of ink from generations of imitators, but Steadman’s role is sometimes lost or underappreciated in all that gonzo wordslaying. The fact is, his illustrations and Thompson’s words formed one of the most powerful and symbiotic art partnerships in American letters (think Walker Evans and James Agee), with Steadman’s art acting as a kinetic delivery vehicle for the mise-en-scène of Thompson’s purposeful anarchy.

From those days until today, Steadman has remained a powerful, original illustrator. Always working at the edge, he has put his sui generis style to the service of exposing societal rot and defending social justice, as well as plumbing the human condition. While the Thompson collaborations remain his most enduring calling card, Steadman’s illustrated editions of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, George Orwell’s Animal Farm, and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island have helped transform book design and editorial art into high art—a truth that’s bountifully evident in the retrospective “Ralph Steadman: And Another Thing,” which opened earlier this month at the American University Museum in Washington, DC.

Because Steadman’s splattershot art is so visually outrageous, and his skewering of authority figures so merciless (see, for instance, his illustration of a diaper-clad Donald Trump with bloody bat ears, published just after the July assassination attempt), his raw, formidable artistry has sometimes gone underappreciated. Nothing gets in the way of Steadman’s craft, and his wellspring of creativity seems as bottomless as the inkwell that supplies his spidery black lines and splotches, all illuminated by vivid, visceral splashes of color.

Today, at 88, Steadman is still living the role that brought him fame half a century ago. When decent folks’ morale is low, this tweedy Welsh art hound, this righteous gun for hire with an eternal twinkle in his scrutinizing eyes, produces statements that speak to the moral indignation and raised middle finger in all of us. “There might be violence in some of my work,” he said in a recent Ocula interview, “but it cannot physically hurt anyone. I am expressing a point of view. Sometimes it’s humorous and sometimes it’s quite serious. Some people agree, some do not. I am trying to say something that words cannot say.”

American University’s imaginatively curated show features 149 works covering more than 60 years of Steadman’s career, including illustrations from the Watergate era; a series depicting extinct and endangered birds and animals; and many examples of his partnership with Thompson—the latter including a lush illustration from the 1983 book The Curse of Lono, produced after the disappointment of Where the Buffalo Roam.

Lono came about as a result of an assignment gone haywire from Running magazine to cover the 1980 Honolulu Marathon, but Thompson’s gonzo instincts resulted in mission creep almost from the moment he touched down in Hawaii. “This filthy goddamn sea is still raging and pounding on the rocks in front of my porch,” Thompson reported in a letter that arrived as Steadman packed for his flight. “Somewhere in the west is a monster storm of some kind, with 40-knot winds and 35-foot seas. That is a typhoon I think. We are paying $1,000 a week to sit out here in the rain on the edge of this savage black rock and wait for the annual typhoon—like the fools they know us to be.”

At American University, one standout work that resulted from that assignment, “The Winners,” stands with Ralph Steadman’s self-portraits, Rolling Stone assignments, and his depiction of Treasure Island as high-water marks of late-20th-century British visual art—a testament to his place as one of the most dazzling and audacious illustrators of our time.

“Ralph Steadman: And Another Thing” runs through December 8 at the American University Museum in Washington, D.C.

Douglas Brinkley, the author, presidential scholar, and Vanity Fair contributing editor, is the Katherine Tsanoff Brown chair in humanities and professor of history at Rice University. His most recent book is Silent Spring Revolution.