What is ‘UBU’?

Ubu Roi was a theatrical production conceived by Alfred Jarry in 1896 that satirized greed, malignant authority, and the evil doings that these often facilitated. Domination and corruption, abuse of power and smugness. Well, human nature hasn’t changed that much! 

In 1996, to celebrate the Centenary of Ubu, three artists visited The Caversham Press to create a portfolio of prints around the theme of Ubu. The participating artists, Deborah Bell, Robert Hodgins and William Kentridge, had collaborated frequently, and had previously made two other print portfolios at Caversham. These were Hogarth in Johannesburg and Little Morals, both based on Christian morality narratives, and looked at the degeneration of human life due to pride, avarice, and hubris. Each artist visually explored a particular aspect of human behaviour within the kind of situation that offers an individual the chance to follow a high moral path, or a low self-serving one – and unfortunately, usually the latter is chosen. So the Ubu concept was almost a natural extension of these.

For the Ubu Portfolio, as it is commonly known, each artist made eight images in print, and in addition Hodgins made the cover:

UBU Centenaire: Histoire d’un farceur criminal

Since it was the centenary of Ubu, Hodgins decided to portray scenes from specific time points in the 20th Century where evil exploded onto the world due to greed, corruption, arrogance and unchecked power. 

And so we have here the portrayal of a century of anti-heroes!