See Winston Churchill through the eyes of the political cartoonists he inspired

Before politicians were shunned on the Internet, they were satirized in political cartoons printed in newspapers and magazines. A new exhibition in London Imperial War Museum explores how a politician’s legacy can be understood through the cartoons he inspired.

“Churchill in Cartoons: Satirizing a Statesmaninvestigates how Winston Churchill was depicted in political cartoons around the world. The exhibition’s opening weekend coincided with the British statesman’s birthday on November 30.

The free exhibition features 24 original cartoons covering Churchill’s entire career in the public eye, from his early days as a politician (the oldest cartoon on display dates from 1909) to his two terms as Prime Minister in the 1940s and 1950s. There are also a number of contemporary cartoons comparing Churchill to contemporary politicians.

“There was never a consensus about him,” says exhibition curator Kate Clements Guardian‘s Killian Fox. “Some images were highly critical and even grotesque,” ​​she says, while others “captured his determined character and portrayed him as a British figurehead.”

Churchill himself was well aware of the “great power” that cartoonists wielded in his day, as he wrote in a 1932 essay entitled “Cartoons and Cartoonists.”

“Cartoons are the common food that feeds today’s adult children,” Churchill’s essay reads, according to the newspaper. Telegraph‘s Alexander Larman. “On this they very often form their opinions about public men and … on this they very often vote.”

The influence of political cartoons was not always bad news for Churchill. In a 1941 cartoon by EH Shepardwho is best known as the illustrator behind Winnie the Poohthe then Prime Minister was portrayed as a brave, hulking dragon slayer, decked out in shining armor. A 1942 cartoon by illustrator Kimon Evan Marengo reinterprets an ancient Persian epic poem featuring the key players of World War II, portraying Churchill, Joseph Stalin, and Franklin D. Roosevelt as heroes who saved Persia from the tyrannical Adolf Hitler.

Other cartoons on display portray the politician less favorably. A 1954 illustration of Punch cartoonist Leslie Illingworth shows an aging, tired and slumped Churchill sitting at his desk. The caption below reads: ‘Man goes to his work and to his labor until evening.’ The cartoon caused controversy, with Churchill himself saying there was “malice in it,” the newspaper said Telegraph. The following year, Churchill resigned his role as Prime Minister due to declining health.

The exhibition provides a global view of Churchill and invites visitors to see how he was depicted by cartoonists from around the world. A 1943 Cuban cartoon by Conrado Massaguer shows Churchill and Roosevelt winning a domino game against a troubled Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Emperor Hirohito, while Stalin looks on approvingly with a pipe in his mouth. In a Hungarian cartoon from circa 1951, Churchill is seen as an ugly villain, ready to set fire to households and factories. A 1942 cartoon of France Ralph Soupaultwho was loyal to the Nazi Party, shows Churchill as a gangster in North Africa, while a Japanese propaganda cartoon from around 1944 shows him cutting off the fingers of an Indian cotton worker, like the London Times‘ reports Patrick Kidd.

“Churchill in Cartoons: Satirizing a Statesman” lasts 20 to 30 minutes, according to the museum. “The exhibition is compact,” writes Larman in his rave review of the show in the Telegraph“but every image tells its own story.”

The person at the center of the exhibition may be one of the most famous politicians in world history, but Clements tells it Guardian that she hopes the exhibition will “add a new layer to our visitors’ understanding of this complex individual.”

“Churchill in Cartoons: Satirizing a Statesman‘ can be seen at the Imperial War Museum in London until February 23, 2025.