WASHINGTON (AP) — Political cartoonist Herblock went after those he considered the biggest bullies in society — and they often included US presidents.

Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon got so upset with his work that they cancelled their subscriptions at times to The Washington Post, the cartoonist's employer, said Sidney Hart, a curator and historian at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery who has organised a new show of Herblock's work.

Herbert L. Block, who combined his first and last names for his more famous pen name, drew cartoons that appeared in American newspapers over seven decades, beginning at the Chicago Daily News in 1929 and continuing at The Washington Post, where he remained until his death in 2001.

"Herblock's Presidents: 'Puncturing Pomposity"' opened in May and is hard to miss, appearing next to the gallery's more regal portrayal of presidents in traditional paintings. It will remain on view through November.

"If you were basically of a certain political point of view, you liked Block; if not, you might not," Hart said. "Block talked about the power of a negative idea or cartoon having a more constructive force."

Block was extremely critical of Nixon and Eisenhower on the issue of desegregation.

Nixon, of course, took more than a few hits for Watergate.

And he wasn't gentle with Lyndon B. Johnson, either, skewering LBJ for diverting funds from the war on poverty to Vietnam and poking fun at a real-life episode where Johnson griped that his portrayal by a painter wasn't "glorious enough," Hart said. (Visitors can see that Johnson portrait at the Portrait Gallery, too.)

Reagan was another favourite target. At times, Block portrayed Reagan as an "amiable dunce," but he didn't sell the president short.

"He was fearful of Reagan's skill at communication," Hart said. "He thought he was perhaps the most dangerous president we'd ever had."

The exhibit includes 40 original cartoons of presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt through Bill Clinton — all on loan from the Library of Congress. More than 120 other cartoons of presidents are available on an interactive kiosk.

The gallery displays some of Block's writing tools, as well as his first Pulitzer Prize from 1942.

Block also won the top journalistic prize in 1954, 1979 and shared it with The Washington Post for Watergate coverage in 1973.

Also on display is Herblock's Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by President Clinton in 1994.

Block's longtime assistant, Jean Rickard, now executive director of the Herblock Foundation, remembers how her boss would get worked up when he read the news of the day.

"He would pace the floor and get angrier and angrier," she said. "As angry as he is in the cartoons, he was very gentle, generous and kind."

She gives Block's work at least partial credit for pressuring Nixon to resign from office.

One memorable cartoon portrayed a huge bloodhound sniffing out scandals with Nixon on the run, throwing the dog the bones of his accomplices.

"He respected the office of the presidency, but that didn't preclude him from going after presidents," Hart said. "He meant to be controversial. There was no mistaking his meaning."

National Portrait Gallery:

www.npg.si.edu/