THE INFANT HERCULES. - an original printed appearance of this cartoon featuring Winston S. Churchill from the 29 April 1925 edition of the magazine Punch, or The London Charivari
London: Punch, 1925. This original printed appearance of a Punch cartoon featuring Winston S. Churchill comes from the personal collection of Gary L. Stiles, author of Churchill in Punch (Unicorn Publishing Group, 2022). His book is the first ever effort to definitively catalog, describe, and contextualize all of the many Punch cartoons featuring Churchill.
This cartoon titled "THE INFANT HERCULES." appeared thus on p.463 of the 29 April 1925 issue of Punch. The artist is Bernard Partridge. Churchill was Chancellor of the Exchequer and had just submitted Britain's first budget after he had restored Britain to the Gold Standard. The artist plays on several themes. First is Churchill's oft repeated portrayal as an infant or cherub. Second is his temperamental inclination to tackle Herculean public policy challenges. In this image, Churchill as "Infant Hercules" and carrying his budget must wrestle the twin serpents of "TRADE DEPRESSION" and "WASTEFUL SPENDING", the invocation of Hercules an acknowledgement of his strengths, the infantilization perhaps a suggestion of limitations. Churchill was early in his tenure, having just become Chancellor in November of 1924.
Punch or The London Charivari began featuring Churchill cartoons in 1900, when his political career was just beginning. That political career would last two thirds of a century, see him occupy Cabinet office during each of the first six decades of the twentieth century, carry him twice to the premiership and, further still, into the annals of history as a preeminent statesman. And throughout that time, Punch satirized Churchill in cartoons – more than 600 of them, the work of more than 50 different artists.
It was a near-perfect relationship between satirists and subject. That Churchill was distinctive in both persona and physical appearance helped make him easy to caricature. To his persona and appearance he added myriad additional satirical temptations, not just props, like his cigars, siren suits, V-sign, and hats, but also a variety of ancillary avocations and vocations, like polo, painting, brick-laying, and writing. All these were skewered as well.
Some Punch cartoons were laudatory, some critical, and many humorous, like the man himself. Nearly always, Churchill was distinctly recognizable, a larger-than-life character whose presence caricature served only to magnify. Item #007139
Price: $85.00