Gillray's Ghost: James Gillray and his influence on political cartoons

Interesting exhibition at the Cartoon Museum looking at the work of the 18th century satirist, James Gillray and the influence he has had on subsequent generations.

It was useful to see this so soon after the show at the Queen’s Gallery on Thomas Rowlandson as they covered roughly the same period. I must admit I preferred Rowlandson as I found Gillray crueller but I think that is the difference between a cartoonist and a satirist.

This exhibition was however quite different in that it mainly looked at Gillray’s influence so there were lots of examples of where modern satirists such as Steve Bell quoted and reused earlier images by Gillray. The main example used was the Plum Pudding in Danger which Gillary had used to show Pitt and Napoleon carving up Europe in the guise of a big pudding. Later examples showed Johnson and Kosygin, Blair and Kohl, Blair and Chirac, Cameron and Sarkozy and many more! It just shows that nothing changes!

I hadn’t realised that Gilray invented the idea of the Old Lady of Theadneedle Street. An MP had called the bank an old lady and Gillray added the street depicting her in a dress made of bank notes and image which is still being used by satirists.

It was nice that most of the modern pictures were originals not prints or images from newspapers. The commentaries were useful but it made me realise you often need to know a lot to get the full meaning of a satirical image as they don’t come with commentaries in the papers!

Closes 17 January.

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