Author with Bart Simpson
Bart Simpson 18th and Salmon
Bart Simpson 18th and Salmon. Go see it for yourself.
The Myth of “Who etched Bart?” in Popular Media:
- Oregonian 5/2012 “Groening drew and signed a sidewalk portrait of Bart Simpson in wet concrete outside his Alma mater…”
- Wikipedia Kings Hill/SW Salmon “Simpsons creator Matt Groening etched Bart Simpson into the east sidewalk”
- GooseHollow.org “Matt Groening (creator of the Simpson’s and graduate of LHS) drew a picture of Bart Simpson in the wet cement after the sidewalk was poured”
- Portland’s Goose Hollow (Arcadia Publishing) by Tracy Prince “Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, is a famous Lincoln High School graduate. He sketched Bart Simpson in the wet cement of the sidewalk along the west end of the field.”
- Walking Portland Oregon 2nd edition (A Falcon Guide) by Sybilla Avery Cook “The first one is a sketch of Bart Simpson by his creator, Matt Groening, a 1972 graduate of Lincoln High School.”
Now here’s the reality…
Matt Wuerker (2012 Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist) was hired by TriMet in 1995 to do a series of 15 sidewalk panels “Trail of Impressions.” TriMet has a complete file of the 20 year old documents verifying Matt Wuerker as the etcher and to further verify this an email was sent to Wuerker and he confirmed that he did in fact etch all 15 including the Bart Simpson.
TriMet Trail of Impressions
TriMet Trail of Impressions
Invoice for work completed on TriMet’s Trail of Impressions by Matt Wuerker.
Here is some art work from ’92 only a few years before he did the Trail of Impressions.
From Matt Wuerkers book Standing Tall in Deep Doo-Doo: A Cartoon Chronicle of the Campaign ’92 and the Bush/Quayle Years
From Standing Tall in Deep Doo-Doo: A Cartoon Chronicle of the Campaign ’92 and the Bush/Quayle Years.
From Standing Tall in Deep Doo-Doo: A Cartoon Chronicle of the Campaign ’92 and the Bush/Quayle Years.
Currently Matt Wuerker is a political cartoonist for and founding staff member of Politico and winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning.
To complete the trio of cartoonists here is some artwork by Matt Groening’s father Homer Groening
Homer Groening cartoons from the Oregonian during the 50s.
Homer Groening cartoons from the Oregonian during the 50s.
Homer Groening cartoons from the 3-28-1954 Oregonian.
Homer Groening cartoons from the 8-12-1956 Oregonian.
Matt Groening and I having a laugh over the idea that he was the one to carve the Bart by Lincoln High. If Matt Wuerkers invoice wasn’t enough to prove that it was not carved by Matt Groening, well I got Matt’s word face to face that he did NOT do the carving. Solved!
HE HAD A DAD NAMED HOMER TOO!