File:0 5c755 b1f4e422 L.jpg

The harmony boys, cartoon by Like Lynch ^[1]

Attributed to year 1940 ^[2]

Description

http://mikelynchcartoons.blogspot.com/2014/08/british-pathe-unused-film-featuring.html

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

British Pathé: Unused Film Featuring Cartoonist David Low (1950)

If you go in to about the 19 second mark in this thirty-one second bit of unseen editing-room-floor film, you can watch British cartoonist David Low drawing a live caricature. This was filmed by British Pathé at a Trade Union Congress event at Blackpool, Lancashire in 1950 or maybe 1951.

This is the first time I have seen footage of David Low, one of the most powerful editorial cartoonists of the 20th century, much less getting to see a few seconds of him drawing.

David Low (1891-1963) was born in New Zealand. His parents took him out of school after the death of his older brother. They believed David had been "weakened by over studying." When he was 11 years old, his first cartoon was published: a three panel comic strip in the British publication "Big Budget."

Low began working as a professional cartoonist in 1910, first at the Canterbury Times, and then at The Bulletin, in Sydney, Australia. 1916 saw the publication of a cartoon lampooning the eccentric behavior of Billy Hughes, then Prime Minister of Australia. He became very well known for his cartoons criticizing Hughes, so much so that Hughes himself called Low a "bastard" to his face.

THE BILLY BOOK, a collection of Low's cartoons, was published two years later. He was asked to come over to London by one of the owners of The London Star newspaper. By 1919, Low had moved to London and working there.

He moved to the much more conservative Evening Standard in 1927 after its owner, Lord Beaverbrook, guaranteed him there would be no editorial interference.

He became widely regarded during the 30s for cartoons criticizing the rise of the Axis powers. He was such a well known political cartoonist, that it's alleged that Goebbels put Low's name in the Nazi's BLACK BOOK -- a compilation of names of people to be arrested upon Germany's successful occupation of the Uniter Kingdom.

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