Graphic artist and Algonquin College Professor Fred Sebastian acknowledges having mixed feelings as he watched some of his life’s work – editorial cartoons and illustrations produced for dozens of newspapers and magazines – be taken away recently to join the national collections of Library and Archives Canada (LAC).
“It’s a huge honour to have your work properly taken care of in this way,” Sebastian says, “and it makes you feel humble to have it archived alongside the life’s work of so many people I admire. It’s also sad to see it go.”
LAC has been collecting Sebastian’s artwork for its permanent collection for years. Its first acquisition was in the 1990s; a second instalment went to the Archives three years ago, with notice that the archivists would be back for more. The latest haul should occupy them for some time – matching artworks to publications and publication dates, photographing newspaper or magazine pages or going through USB sticks to cull Sebastian’s copies of his work or digital originals.
Sebastian’s editorial cartoons and illustrations have appeared over decades in outlets as diverse as the long-defunct Ottawa Sunday Herald (which became the Ottawa Sun in 1988), the Ottawa Citizen, Toronto Star, New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times and a long list of other print and digital media.
