Art Bloom | The machine-making, cartoon-drawing Pulitzer prize-winner is the focus of a new exhibition, which also shines a light on the relevance of his political artTheres a cartoon hanging in the Queens Museum in New York a drawing of a man with a shovel, digging through piles of paper. The papers symbolize government corruption, but they wind up in the dump. The caption explains: Senate investigating committee digs up huge mass of evidence which passes before startled eyes of indignant but apathetic public, and then slides into obscurity, making room for next investigation. From Donald Trumps Ukraine scandal and the The Art of Rube Goldberg, a survey which opened this weekend and runs until 9 February. The pioneering 20th-century artist created more than 50,000 cartoons in a career that spanned seven decades. This is the first retrospective in 49 years to look at Goldbergs work. It also highlights his overlooked career as a Pulitzer prize-winning political satirist. Political cartoons were not his main output, but some of his work remains so relevant, said the museums assistant curator, Sophia Marisa Lucas. He was seeking to find humor in some things, as a clever opportunity for relief. A traveling exhibition organized by Art & Artists the retrospective features Goldbergs views on society in the 1930s and 1940s, skewering Adolf Hitler, commenting on the inflation of the US dollar and addressing Peace Today, showing an atomic bomb teetering towards the brink of destruction. Rube Goldberg, Foolish Questions postcards, 1910. Illustration: Rube Goldberg Goldberg was born in San Francisco in 1883, moved to New York City in 1907 and got a job at the Evening Mail in 1908 with a cartoon series called Foolish Questions. It was based on the premise: Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. In 1914 to 1964, he ran a series called The Inventions of Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts. Before becoming a cartoonist, Goldberg studied engineering, and here put his knowledge to work. He turned seemingly useless tasks into complicated chain reaction invention machines (in one, a car gets a windshield wiper from a dogs wagging tail; in another, theres a 20-step way to brush your teeth). It didnt stop on paper, either. Goldbergs invention machines made it to Hollywood. He created a where a toy train pushes plates along a kitchen, while in Pee-wees Big Adventure, elections, lying presidents and the Middle Eastern conflict. He showed an American vote counting to a carnival game. When all clerks are unconscious, the election is over, Goldberg wrote. One cartoon from the 1940s, called The Numbers Blues, shows a man standing sheepishly under rows of numbers hovering above his head from his phone number to social security and bank account imagining himself as a jailbird. Political cartoons were easier for me than the inventions because they were almost pure idea and the draftsmanship was relatively simple, Goldberg once said, I could do two political cartoons a day, but an invention sometimes required a week. Rube Goldberg. Photograph: Oscar White/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images His creative process might have been easier, but the world around him became complicated. During the second world war, Goldberg faced intense criticism for his political cartoons and received a lot of hate mail. Since he was Photos from the opening show the artist, aged 87, in a sharp suit and bow tie, white-haired and in black-rimmed glasses, chatting with guests alongside his wife. The exhibition was calledThe Art of Rube Goldberg is on show at Queens Museum in New York until 9 February