The Kresge Art Museum will showcase contemporary art influenced by cartoons, comics and popular illustrations in its “Art in the ’Toon Age” exhibit beginning Sept. 3.

The two-month long exhibit will include work by leading British, French, Japanese, Canadian and American artists.

With more than 45 paintings, drawings and prints on display, the exhibit will demonstrate the range of cartoon-inspired art, from the satire to the sublime.

Each piece reflects the stylistic influence of 20th-century comics, cartoons and advertisements created by three distinct generations of artists.

The development is parallel to pop-culture inspired art, but has gone largely unrecognized as a definable style.

To accompany “Art in the ’Toon Age,”, “The Story of ’Toons” will depict an abbreviated history of comic culture.

Many of the works in “The Story of ’Toons” are drawn from the MSU Library’s Russel B. Nye Popular Culture Collection and function as inspiration for the artists featured in the exhibit “Art In The ’Toon Age.”

For more information, visit www.msu.edu/unit/kamuseum/toon.