THE ADMIRABLE WINSTON - an original printed appearance of this cartoon featuring then-Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill in the 21 October 1953 edition of the magazine Punch, or The London Charivari
London: Punch, 1953. 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 ADMIRABLE WINSTON" appeared thus on p.497 of the 21 October 1953 issue of Punch. The artist is Michael Cummings (1919-1997), who worked for Punch for more than 30 years. The cartoon's caption is a verse supplied by B. A. Young, Punch writer and theatre critic:
"For talents that both scintillate and vary
Few in our age have shown themselves thy betters,
Academician Extraordinary,
And winner of the Nobel Prize for letters!
Thou honorary member of Parnassus!
Adopted son of half a dozen Muses! -
Whom, rightly dubbed Immortal by the masses,
Only the sourest Socialist abuses -
How well the look, now frowning, now angelic, on
That noble brow of thine contrives to show
The easy way thy spirit skips from Helicon
To Downing Street in half an hour or so."
After being Leader of the Opposition since July 1945, Churchill finally returned to the premiership in October 1951 at nearly 77 years old. And as his premiership progressed and his infirmities became manifest, pressure mounted for him to relinquish leadership. But so, too, grew his accolades. This tribute to Churchill references both his Nobel Prize in Literature (awarded in 1953) and his being named an Honorary Adacemician Extraordinary of the Royal Academy of Arts. Churchill's second and final premiership would end with his retirement on 5 April 1955. He would spend his final decade as “a living national memorial" of the time he had lived and the Nation, Empire, and free world he had served.
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 #007192
Price: $50.00