RICK MEYEROWITZ (1943- ) Mark Twain and Richard Pryor. Illustration used as a projected backdrop before and during the award ceremony for the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, presented at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington D.C., October 20, 1998. Watercolor, colored pencil, and gouache on stiff paper. 315x415mm; 12 1/2x16 1/2 inches, on 17x22-inch sheet. Signed "Rick Meyerowitz" in lower right image, with date of October 15, [19]98 on verso, with artist's stamps.
Legendary comedian Richard Pryor was the recipient of the inaugural Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, an annual award which recognizes figures who have impacted American culture in ways similar to that of the legendary writer, satirist, and social commentator, Samuel Clemens. Much like Clemens, Pryor's acerbic and uncompromising wit both outraged and delighted his contemporaries. Lawrence J. Wilker, the President of Kennedy Center at the time, said that Pryor encouraged Americans to confront the "large social questions of race and the more tragicomic aspects of the human condition . . . They were both (Pryor and Clemens) trenchant social critics who spoke the truth, however outrageous."
![RICK MEYEROWITZ (1943- ) Mark Twain and Richard Pryor. [CARICATURE / CARTOONS / COMEDY]](https://catalogue.swanngalleries.com/full//916\776916.jpg)
