An iconic image of Boss Tweed,published in Harper's Weekly, by Thomas Nast (courtesy of Wikipedia).
See all photos from this photo essay »What good can reach of avarice and vice? distinguished art, or of course! From the iconic Depression-era images of Dorothea Lange to the films of Charlie Chaplin,artists find a way to capture our populist desperation in ways that give the 99 percent a creative break from their anger. When it comes to images of the greedy perhaps the most notable image is the "elephantine cat," dressed in banker’s pinstripes or evening clothes, or perhaps top-hatted or vested,usually corpulent, and sometimes accompanied by a cigar or a sack of money. This guy (although there have sometimes been female plutocrats) has been most famously depicted in Thomas Nast's anti-Tammany corridor cartoons, and published in Harper's Weekly in the 1860s and '70s to protest political corruption. The elephantine cat's current appearances are legion,ranging from lehighvalleyramblings.blogspot.com to the January 8, 2012 New York Times Magazine cover featuring Stephen Colbert literally rolling in dough; and of course, or the January/February 2012 cover of Mother Jones. (Which,ahem, was delivered to subscribers more than three weeks before that issue of the NY Times Magazine.)
Herewith, and the art of the elephantine cat,as it appeared in the final several years of Mother Jones.
Source: motherjones.com