1943.02.01 “Groundhog Day”
by Frederick (Fred) Otto Seibel (1886 – 1969)
17 x 14 in., ink on paper
Coppola Collection
Frederick Seibel began his career as a cartoonist in 1916 for the Knickerbocker Press in Albany, New York. He moved to Virginia in 1926 to become an editorial cartoonist for the Richmond Times-Dispatch and worked there for over 30 years. Over the course of his career, he did several shows at Metropolitan Museum Of New York, Art Institute of Chicago and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Seibel died in 1968 after completing nearly 16,000 cartoons. His most famous cartoon was "Retreat from Moscow," (5 November 1936) depicting presidential candidate Alfred E. Smith as Napoleon after FDR's landslide victory in 1936.
This drawing epitomizes the art of the editorial cartoon. The United Nations, here, is not the UN, but a simple statement of nations uniting against a common foe. The brightness of the sun shines down on this little rodent, because it happens to be Groundhog Day which, in 1943, was cancelled due to the war. He’s seen his shadow, though, and so the forecast for him is not good – there will be no early Spring. Despite cancellation, the tradition lived on, here, as the dictator heads to a defensive position to wait out the Winter. And there is more of a story being told here, still. On February 1, 1943, the surrender of the German Sixth Army ended the 6 months long Battle of Stalingrad, a decisive victory and a major turning point in World War II. The defeat forced Hitler and the Nazis onto a defensive position and marked the beginning of their long retreat back to Germany. No title needed. The picture tells the story.
