David Low (cartoonist)

Ye Madde Designer, 1935

The son of chemist David Brown Low and Jane Caroline Flanagan, David Low was born in Dunedin on 7 April 1891, and attended primary school there. His family later moved to Christchurch, where Low briefly attended Christchurch Boys' High School. However following the death of his eldest brother, Low was taken out of school, as his parents believed that he had been weakened by over studying. Low's first cartoon was published in 1902, when he was 11 years old, a three-picture strip in the British comic Big Budget.[1]

Low began his career as a professional cartoonist with the Canterbury Times in 1910. In 1911 he moved to Sydney, Australia to join The Bulletin. A large format collection of some 350 pieces for those papers was published in the album Caricatures by Low 1915.[2] During his employment at The Bulletin, Low became well known for a 1916 cartoon satirising Billy Hughes, then the Prime Minister of Australia, entitled The Imperial Conference. After that success, Low published many cartoons depicting Hughes' forceful and eccentric personality. Hughes was not impressed and apparently called Low a "bastard" to his face.[3] A collection of Low's cartoons of Hughes entitled The Billy Book, which he published in 1918, brought Low to the notice of Henry Cadbury, part-owner of The Star. In 1919 Cadbury offered Low a job with the Star, which Low promptly accepted.

From 1919 to 1927 Low worked at the London Star, which sympathised with his moderately left-wing views. In 1927, he accepted an invitation from Max Aitken to join the conservative Evening Standard on the strict understanding that there would be no editorial interference with his output. In 1928 he showed his support for newly enfranchised women with his character, Joan Bull. The character appeared for a few years but fell out of regular use as the public concerns about women getting the vote disappeared.[4] Low produced numerous cartoons about the Austrian Civil War, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, the 1936 Summer Olympics, the Spanish Civil War, and other events of the interwar period. He also worked with Horace Thorogood to produce illustrated whimsical articles on the London scene, under the byline "Low & Terry".

John Gunther called Low "the greatest caricaturist in the world".[5] In 1937, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels told British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax that British political cartoons, particularly those of Low's, were damaging Anglo-German relations. In 1937 Low had produced an occasional strip about "Hit and Muss" (Hitler and Mussolini), but after Germany made official complaints he substituted a composite dictator, "Muzzler".[6] After the war, Low is said to have found his name in The Black Book, the list of those the Nazis planned to arrest in the aftermath of an invasion of Great Britain.[7]

Rendezvous, 20 September 1939.

His works are featured in many British history textbooks. On 1 September, the Germans invaded Poland from the west and, on 17 September, the Soviets invaded from the east. Low depicted these events in one of his most famous cartoons, Rendezvous, first published in the Evening Standard on 20 September 1939.[8] It satirises the cynicism at the heart of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, showing Hitler and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin bowing politely across the dead body of Poland and greeting each other respectively as "The scum of the earth, I believe?" and "The bloody assassin of the workers, I presume?". The phrasing is based on that supposedly used by Henry Morton Stanley at his meeting with David Livingstone in 1871, and the dictators are shown raising their hats to one another in greeting similarly to the two explorers in artistic reconstructions of that earlier meeting. The work has been parodied by several other cartoonists.[9]

The Harmony Boys of 2 May 1940[10] depicts Hitler, Stalin, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, and Spanish dictator Francisco Franco "harmonizing" and getting along quite well. When this cartoon was published, the German invasion of the Soviet Union was still more than a year in the future.

His satirical works met much criticism in the British public eye. The British press called him a "war monger," and many citizens felt disdain for his depictions of appeasement.

Low remained in the United Kingdom for the rest of his career. He left the Evening Standard in 1950. That same year, he moved to the Daily Herald and stayed there until 1953. Finally, Low moved to the Manchester Guardian and was there from 1953.

Low received a knighthood in the 1962 Birthday Honours and died at his home in London on 19 September 1963.[11][12] His obituary in The Guardian described him as "the dominant cartoonist of the western world".[13]

A blue plaque commemorates Low at 33 Melbury Court, Kensington.[14]

Left: The English Heritage blue plaque commemorating Low at Melbury Court on Kensington High Street
Right: Melbury Court in May 2015

Low married Madeline Grieve Kenning of Auckland on 7 June 1920 in St. Paul's Church, Covent Garden; they lived for many years in Golders Green, North London.[1] The couple had two daughters: in 1939, Time described Low's breakfast as "a political meeting, with the cartoonist, his wife, and his two young daughters threshing out the news." His wife and daughters survived him.[1] In 1991 a Blue plaque was erected to commemorate his life at Melbury Court, Kensington High Street, London, W8 6NH in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.[15]