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August 15, 2005
Vic Cantone Bids Adieu
Cartoonist and long-time AAEC member Victor Cantone, 71, died on April 2, 2005.
As noted in the last issue of the Notebook, Vic had been fighting a battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, for a number of years.
Cantone was a nationally syndicated political cartoonist listed in Who’s Who in American Art. He was with Newsday from 1954-1959 as newsroom cartoonist and courtroom artist, and on staff at the Daily News from 1951-1991.
At the Daily News he won a number of awards, including the Fourth Estate Award in 1976 and a Deadline Club award in 2003. His work was syndicated by King Features and appeared in publications including the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Time.
Cantone was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize three times and had caricatures of Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan in their presidential libraries. His family has a photograph of Ford standing in the White House with one of Cantone’s caricatures of him.
Bart Jones wrote in Newsday: “As a prize-winning political cartoonist at the New York Daily News for three decades, Vic Cantone liked to address everything from pollution to free speech to school shootings. And he liked to address it hard.”
“His cartoons stabbed right at the issue. He never watered them down,” said his son, Caesar Cantone, of Bethpage. “He enjoyed it when they stirred a little controversy.”
According to the obituary in Newsday, “Cantone was born in Brooklyn and was drawing cartoons by age 5, relatives said. He attended the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan, graduating in 1952.
“In 1990, the Smithsonian Institution contracted him to curate an international political cartoon exhibit on the environment which included his work and that of political cartoonists from 35 nations. The exhibit toured the United States from 1992 to 1998.
“While racking up awards, he returned to school in 1979 and obtained a bachelor’s degree in political science from Hofstra University to deepen his understanding of politics and to enhance his cartoons’ impact. His thesis was on terrorism, a topic he lectured on at such places as the New York Press Club.
“He also developed an interest in studying terrorism, and he sometimes made comparisons with his own profession.
“According to his son, he once said that ‘both groups seek political and social change. Terrorists are impatient and violent. Political cartoonists are patient and creative. But we’re both angry.’
“In an article he wrote for the Society of Professional Journalists, Cantone argued ‘that terrorists are extremely image conscious. As political cartoonists, we should consider reversing the image terrorists seek, thereby avoiding masterful images that would depict them as powerful. As an example of reversing an image, one concept is showing them as puny cowards.’
“Cantone’s family recalled that he was extremely generous with his work, doing thousands of caricatures for free, especially for charities.”
Cantone is survived by two other children, Victor Jr. and Mary; his wife, Dianna; his mother, Mary; and nine grandchildren. He was buried at Holy Trinity Cemetery in Carnegie, Pa.