Perdrix

1925 · 007141 — 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. <br /> <br />This cartoon titled "WORK FOR THE AXE." appeared thus on p.703 of the 1 July 1925 issue of Punch. The artist is Bernard Partridge. The cartoon is captioned "Mr. Churchill. 'SO FAR SO GOOD. NOW FOR THE REGIONS OF ETERNAL ICE.'" In the image Winston dressed as a circa 1920s mountaineer stands leaning on a pickaxe labeled "FINANCE BILL 3RD READING" while regarding a distant high peak labeled "STATE EXTRAVAGANCE". Churchill as Chancellor of the Exchequer was seeing his first budget through Parliament. Issues being hotly debated ranged from war debt payments to the U.S. the cost of social programs such as unemployment insurance health care payments new taxes and on whom industry versus individual consumer and the recent reintroduction of the Gold Standard. <br /> <br />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. <br /> <br />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. <br /> <br />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. <br/><br/> Punch unknown