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Edmund S. Valtman

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Valtman's Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoon
Caricature of Leonid Brezhnev by Valtman

Edmund Siegfried Valtman (May 31, 1914 – January 12, 2005) was an Estonian and American editorial cartoonist and winner of the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning.

Early life

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Born in Tallinn, Estonia, he sold his first cartoons at age 15[1] to the children's magazine Laste Rõõm. He worked as an editorial cartoonist for the newspapers Eesti Sõna and Maa Sõna under the name Vallot[1] and studied at the Tallinn Art and Applied Art School. When the USSR reoccupied Estonia in 1944, he and his wife fled the country with the retreating Nazi troops and then spent the next four years in a displaced persons camp in Germany, which was still under the control of Allied occupation forces. They emigrated to the United States in 1959,[2] first to New Jersey and then to Hartford, Connecticut.[1][3]

Career

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Once in the US, Valtman worked for The Hartford Times from 1951 until his 1975 retirement. He was noted for his caricatures of Cold War–era communist leaders like Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his August 31, 1961 cartoon. It showed Fidel Castro leading a shackled, beaten-down man representing Cuba and advising Brazil "What You Need, Man, Is a Revolution Like Mine!"[2][4][5]

Valtman died in a Bloomfield, Connecticut retirement home.[2]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Green, Rick (March 9, 1992). "Book Looks Back at Long Career of Pulitzer Prize–Winning Artist". Hartford Courant. Hartford, CT. pp. 89, 95. Retrieved April 20, 2023 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  2. ^ a b c Finholm, Valerie (January 16, 2005). "Edmund Valtman, 90; Pulitzer-Winning Editorial Cartoonist". The Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, CA. p. 45. Retrieved April 19, 2023 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  3. ^ Fischer, Heinz Dietrich (1999). Editorial Cartoon Awards, 1922-1997: From Rollin Kirby and Edmund Duffy to Herbert Block and Paul Conrad. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-598-30183-4.
  4. ^ Charles, Holden, PhD. "Cold War Wrestling Match." Teachinghistory.org. Accessed 3 July 2011.
  5. ^ "Edmund Valtman: The Cartoonist Who Came in From the Cold (Library of Congress - Swann Foundation)". www.loc.gov. Retrieved May 25, 2023.
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