David Low FAMOUS CARTOONIST REVIEWS CAREER

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29744, 10 February 1962, Page 10

David Low FAMOUS CARTOONIST REVIEWS CAREER

I From the London Correspondent of "The Press")

London, January 26.—According to David Low, daring is the one essential quality—apart from artistic skill—for a political cartoonist and satirist

“Satire, to be worthy and pertinent, has to have a point; it should not be innocuous,” said Low today. “A satirist should say something. All the worthy satirists have said something: Gillray. Daumier. Gulbransson, and Thomas Nast, the great American master.

“One can be a black-and-white artist, and be good, and enjoy life, but if one wishes to be a satirical political cartoonist, well . . .

“I personally cannot remember when I ever illustrated any ideas in which I did not believe,” he continued. “I have never seen the necessity for doing so. And yet I’m not entirely sure I wouldn’t rather do a good drawing In preference to a good cartoon, for I have always been an artist interested in drawing. I'm always happiest when I’m drawing. Vistas “There are vistas with pen and brush which fascinate me,” said Low. “I can spend all day—indeed, I have sometimes spent all day—trying to get into a face a shade of likeness which expresses the total personality of the person I’m drawing. You could guess that from the people I most admire; Gillray and Daumier were the finest artists in that kind of expression that have ever been. Gillray got into trouble; Daumier was put in gaol for being naughty; but as caricaturists of personality they were unparalleled, and I don’t think you will get their like again.” Low, who will be 71 in April, selected from his own published works a book of remarkable sketches of personalities such as Stanley Baldwin—“one of the best I ever did”—James Maxton, Sir John Simon, P. G. Wodehouse, and Professor Einstein —a brilliantly amusing drawing of a little man poised an inch or two above his own shadow.

“With Einstein, I tried to make him ‘Nth dimensional' by separating him from his shadow,” said Low. "A journalist subsequently ran the picture in a paper, omitting the shadow. ... I damn nearly had the law on him.” Daring David Low’s works alone emphasise his daring, for today his soft brown eyes above a greying little imperial beard reveal only an impish sparkle. But he has dared European dictators, his own employers, the social sets In England to which he had the entre, statesmen and polititians by the hundred; and with his pen he has lashed and lampooned. Many would be prepared to describe this gay little man. so quick to laugh and so penetrating in his wit, as one of the really influential figures in British and European political history—possibly even world history—during the present century. He was on the Gestapo list. Lord Halifax took him to lunch one day, and made it pretty clear that by "easing up” a little Low might contribute to an easing of international tension.

He spent several uneasy hours on an aircraft at Hamburg after an unscheduled

landing there on a flight from Denmark to Austria about the time of the Anschluss. He was unhappily aware of the fact that, if the Gestapo agents at the airport knew he was aboard the plane, he could have met with a “diplomatic accident.”

That he conceded, was one of the two most disquieting moments he had ever experienced.

The other occurred when the anticipation in a cartoon of an assassination in Europe appeared to some observers to imply tacit complicity in a political murder which actually occurred very soon after the cartoon was published Reasons far Success I asked Low what, apart from his great artistic talent and daring, bad contributed to his outstanding success as a cartoonist and caricaturist 9 “I have in the first place enjoyed my work immensely, and that is tremendously important." he replied. “Then again, 1 have always been interestea in life; I’ve always liked to move about, to sample people, to smell things out, to find out what people meant and what the game was about

“I was like a flea in a bottle for years and years. I travelled a lot throughout Europe, but London has r

always been the ideal place for me. You know, it’s the sort of city one can repose on. Yes, I enjoyed my work and I never bothered about making money out of it But money has come in. and I always take it when it flows " Low said that when he joined the Beaverbrook Press, a contract was signed granting him a completely free hand in his drawings. “Beaverbrook always defended my virtue," he said, “though I disagreed with him on many points in his own paper. After the first upheavals, we became firm friends.

“We made history by vindicating the freedom of journalism, and today it is a tradition in the Beaverbrook Press that cartoonists are able to say what they think.” Lord Beaverbrook Of Lord Beaverbrook, Low said: “His elasticity of mind and his freshness of outlook have been the most valuable things this country has had in my time. Max has always been interested in the welfare of others. In the press he has been beneficent. I doubt if I would have got forward if it had not been for Beaverbrook.” Low said Beaverbrook had come to Britain from Canada with an overseas mind; he had incurred some unpopularity through flouting tradition and “turning the country on its side.” Some of that unpopularity had endured until, as Minister for Aircraft Production, he had helped to save the nation from the enemy.

“Yes, I’m very fond of Max. It’s funny how people, as they grow old together, get terribly fond of one another. But I think he is a great man," said Low. He added that Lord Beaverbrook, now 82, had for 40 years suffered from asthma—an illness to which Low himself had recently fallen a victim. "Yes, I have been unwell. On my seventieth birthday, I entered hospital with a bronchial complaint, but I would never have belieCcd that I would develop asthmatical trouble. It will kill me in the end, of course.” said Low.

“But everybody gets bronchial trouble in London. I hear people down in the streets every morning—barking, coughing, snorting, each one reminding me of the Hound of the Baskervilles.” Londoners Now

David Low and his wife, both of whom were born in Dunedin, have been away from New Zealand for so many years now that they look upon themselves as Londoners. Mrs Low corresponds still with two sisters in New Zealand, but her husband has no close ties with the Dominion. It is more than 50 years since he left Christchurch to join the “Bulletin" in Sydney. He was back in New Zealand for the last time more than 40 years ago—and then only for a few days. Recently he saw a film of New Zealand, including scenes of Christchurch. “But it wasn’t the Christchurch I remembered," he said. “I couldn’t get my hooks into it at all.”

Contrary to fairly widespread belief. David Low had less than a year’s education at the Christchurch Boys’ High School. “I educated myself largely,” he said. "I looked for the subjects I found necessary to myself. I was not interested in mathematics, but I was violently interested in history. I ate it up—the classics about Rome, Greece (Athens in particular) —and studied all sorts of illustrations of representational or expressive art." Low said be was not doing as many cartoons now. Sometimes he could almost sense the younger men saying: “I wonder how long this fellow is going to carry on." Did he envisage the day when he would draw his last cartoon and put his pen aside?

His reply was typically humorous: “That's a bit like asking me if the funeral is going to start at 9 o'clock ”

Sir Douglas Robb, Chancellor of Auckland University, has been granted an honorary degree of doctor of laws by Queen's University. Belfast He has received the award for his published work on medicine, hospital reform and university development in New Zealand The degree will be conferred at a special graduation ceremony on July 26 to mark the British Medical Association conference being held in Belfast. Sir Douglas Robb is president of the association.