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The Political Cartoon Gallery is open 9.30am to 5.30pm Monday to Friday and 11.30am
to 5.30pm on Saturday.
Phone 0207 580 1114 for further details.
6 March – 19 April 2008
Shooting the Witness
is an exhibition by the Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al-Ali, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of his
assassination in London.
Naji Al-Ali was one of the most prominent cartoonists in the Arab world. Sarcastic,
poignant and perhaps too bold, El Ali's cartoons were drawn from his experience as a Palestinian refugee
since childhood and clearly reflected his political stance. Naji Al-Ali had no political affiliations
and the absence of slogans and dogma in his work brought both success and criticism. His bold and illustrative
cartoons, widely published over the past 20-30 years, reveal the tragic state of the Middle East. The
artist combined art and political satire like none other; his work sadly still rings true today.
His
cartoons portrayed the bitter struggle and plight of the Palestinian people against Israeli oppression.
He also campaigned against the absence of democracy, widespread corruption, and gross inequality in the
Arab world. He was said to have antagonized virtually everyone in the Middle East. During his lifetime,
he was said to have drawn around 40,000 drawings, on average two cartoons a day. He worked for various
publications in the Arab world. Naji Al-Ali draws a critique of all sides in the conflict, and the world's
complicity in the prolonged occupation of the Palestinians.
For the first time in London, sixty of Naji
Al-Ali’s original artwork will be exhibited in Political Cartoon Gallery located in central London,
the world’s only centre dedicated to Political Cartoons and Caricature. The gallery is organising
the exhibition in cooperation with the SOAS Palestine Society, the Nakba60 group, Cartoon County and
the family of Naji Al-Ali.
23 April – 14 June 2008
Sir David Low (1891 – 1963)
is considered the greatest political cartoonist of the Twentieth Century. This exhibition includes over
60 original cartoons from his time at the Sydney Bulletin before the First World War through to the Evening
Standard and finally The Guardian. None of the cartoons on show have been exhibited before and include
a number that were censored before and during the Second World War. Many of the originals on show include
Low’s most famous creations Colonel Blimp and the TUC Carthorse. The exhibition will also coincide
with the launch of a book entitled Low and the Dictators which features the almost private war Low fought
against Hitler and Mussolini in the pages of the Evening Standard from the 1920s until the end of the
Second World War.
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On Wednesday 6 December 2007, the Political Cartoon of the Year Awards was held at the Guardian Newsroom
for the first time. For the Cartoonist of the Year Award the jury chose Steve Bell, whose work, in their
opinion, hascontinued to push boundaries and to impress with its wide and adventurous range of imagery
and subject matter; a cartoonist who has maintained his inspired, and often surreal, comic inventiveness
and vision of society, creating images which have become part of the currency of the British cartoon.
Martin Rowson’s cartoon of Tony Blair was voted Cartoon of the Year. The runner-up spot was claimed
by The Times’ Morten Morland. Kenneth Clarke MP, who presented the awards, didn’t fail to
notice that literally all the cartoons on display were “at the expense of my political opponents”.
He joked, in reference to the Prime Minister’s perceived dour nature, that somehow he couldn’t
see “Gordon acquiring any of them”. |
| "And the winner is... " |
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| Martin Rowson - Cartoon of the Year |
From left to right, Martin Rowson with the Gillray Goblet, Morten Morland with the Tenniel Tankard
and Steve Bell with the Low Trophy.
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