See Winston Churchill Through the Eyes of the Political Cartoonists He Inspired

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

“Churchill in Cartoons: Satirizing a Statesman” explores how Winston Churchill was depicted in political cartoons around the world. The exhibition’s opening weekend coincided with what would have been the British statesman’s birthday on November 30.

The free exhibition features 24 original cartoons that span Churchill’s entire career in the public eye, from his early days as a politician—the oldest cartoon on display is from 1909—to his two terms as prime minister in the 1940s and 1950s. A number of contemporary cartoons that compare Churchill to modern-day politicians are also on display.

“There was never a consensus view of him,” exhibition curator Kate Clements tells the Guardian’s Killian Fox. “Some of the depictions were heavily critical and even grotesque,” she says, while others “depict his determined nature and portray him as a British figurehead.”

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

“Cartoons are the regular food on which the grown-up children of today are fed,” Churchill’s essay reads, per the Telegraph’s Alexander Larman. “On these very often they form their views of public men and … on these very often they vote.”

The influence of political cartoons wasn’t always bad news for Churchill. In one 1941 cartoon by E. H. Shepard, who is best known for being the illustrator behind Winnie-the-Pooh, the then-prime minister was depicted as a brave, colossal dragon-slayer decked out in shining armor. A 1942 cartoon by illustrator Kimon Evan Marengo reinterprets an ancient Persian epic poem with the major players of World War II, depicting Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Franklin D. Roosevelt as heroes who have saved Persia from a tyrannical Adolf Hitler.

Other cartoons on display depict the politician less favorably. A 1954 illustration by Punch cartoonist Leslie Illingworth shows an aging, tired and slouched-over Churchill sitting at his desk. The caption below it reads, “Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening.” The cartoon stoked controversy, with Churchill himself saying “there’s malice in it,” according to the Telegraph. The following year, Churchill stepped down from his role as prime minister due to declining health.

The exhibition takes a global view of Churchill, inviting 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 game of dominoes 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 around 1951, Churchill is seen as an ugly villain, ready to set households and factories on fire. A 1942 cartoon by France’s Ralph Soupault, who was loyal to the Nazi party, shows Churchill as a gangster in North Africa, while a Japanese propaganda cartoon from around 1944 shows him chopping off the fingers of an Indian cotton worker, as the London Times’ Patrick Kidd reports.

“Churchill in Cartoons: Satirizing a Statesman” takes 20 to 30 minutes to see, according to the museum. “The exhibition is compact,” writes Larman in his favorable 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 the Guardian that she hopes the exhibition will “add another layer to our visitors’ understanding of this complex individual.”

“Churchill in Cartoons: Satirizing a Statesman” is on view at the Imperial War Museum in London through February 23, 2025.

Ella Feldman | READ MORE

Ella Malena Feldman is a writer and editor based in Washington, D.C. She examines art, culture and gender in her work, which has appeared in Washington City Paper, DCist and the Austin American-Statesman.