NAST, Thomas, American caricaturist: b. Landau, Bavaria, 27 Sept. 1840; d. Guayaquil, Ecuador, 7 Dec. 1902. His mother brought him to this country in 1846. He was employed as doorkeeper in Bryant's Art Gallery, Broadway and 13th street, New York, where he spent his spare time copying the paintings. For six months he studied in a drawing class, then be came a draughtsman for Frank Leslie's. In 1860 he was sent to England to draw for the Illustrated News the Heenan-Sayers prize fight; in 1861 drew sketches of the Italian campaign; in 1862 joined the Harper's Weekly staff and by his clever cartoons soon became famous. But with his purely political and personal cari catures dating from 1871-73, when he attacked the Tweed Ring in New York City, drew the money-bag head of Tweed and the first Tam many tiger and largely contributed to the de feat of the Ring, he came to new fame and power. He bitterly opposed Greeley in 1872, Tilden in 1876 and Hancock in MO, urging against each of these nominees his inevitable connection with Tammany Hall. In 1884 he
attacked the Republican candidate for the only time, but with unusual bitterness. He left Har per's Weekly in 1887 and in 1894 became a member of the staff of the Pall Mall Gazette. In May 1902 he was appointed United States consul at Guayaquil, where he died of yellow fever. For several years he published (Nast's Almanac,' with his own illustrations to text by various authors and illustrated 'Pickwick Papers' and 'Pictures from Italy.' Nast did some oil-painting, especially of scenes in the Civil War. He was a great caricaturist, as realistic as the French masters in his groups and as dignified as Tenniel in his single figure cartoons. Consult Paine, A. B., Nast: His Period and His Pictures' (New York 1904) and and Letters of Thomas (ib. 1910).