Portugal press museum to honour slain French cartoonist

Portugal’s Printing Press Museum will Saturday inaugurate an exhibition in honour of French cartoonist Georges Wolinski who was gunned down by Islamists in last week’s attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris.

The show at the museum in Porto, Portugal’s second-largest city, will offer a retrospective of works from Wolinski’s decades-long career, including “several hundred” editions of Charlie Hebdo, the museum’s director Luis Humberto Marcos, told AFP.

Wolinski, 80, had since 2004 headed the jury of PortoCartoon, one of the biggest cartoon contests in the world which is held each year at the museum in the northern city.

“Wolinski was a friend, and also the North Star of PortoCartoon,” said Marcos who attended the French cartoonist’s funeral in Paris on Thursday.

“His death was a brutal shock and it leaves a great void in the world of caricature, but it will lead to freedom of humour to be strengthened.”

Wolinski was one of 12 people killed in the attack on the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo carried out by two jihadist brothers in what they said was revenge for previous insults to the Prophet Mohammed by the magazine.

He was known for his cartoons spoofing politics and sexuality, will be named the honorary president of the jury of PortoCartoon, which brings together hundreds of cartoonists from around the world each year.

Wolinski was one of ten cartoonists who in 2008 declared Porto to be the “world capital of caricature”. The city awarded him honorary citizenship last year.

The press museum, opened in 1997 in a former factory, has also set up the “Je Suis Charlie Gallery” on its website that features cartoons submitted by artists from around the world that deal with the attack against the French magazine.