1917

Clown on a Cart

American, 1882 - 1971

Kent made his first foray into commercial advertising with a series of nostalgic designs for Adams Black Jack chewing gum that evoked the popular amusements of the late Victorian era. This drawing shows a crowd enjoying a parade featuring a circus clown on a cart pulled by a donkey. The ads were never published, probably because the product they were meant to promote was not depicted in any of the designs. Kent signed this and many other early commercial illustrations with the pseudonym “Hogarth Jr.,” a clever nod to the famous eighteenth-century British printmaker and social satirist William Hogarth.