THE ART WORLD INTERESTED

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LIX, Issue 86, 28 October 1938, Page 5

THE ART WORLD INTERESTED

YOUNG CHINESE POLITICAL

CARTOONS

NO INSTRUCTION IN DRAWING

(From The Guardian's London

Correspondent)

LONDON, October 8

A seven-year-old Chinese boy, whose political cartoons have caused a sensation in the art world, has come to London. He is Plato X Chan, son of the Chinese attache in Paris, and he can produce a political cartoon on any subject within three or four minutes.

Plato, who is paying his first visit to England with his parents, Mr and Mrs Yat-Kwong Chan, and his sister, Christina, can also turn out symbolic paintings in oil as well as black-and-white impressions. Plato speaks English, French, Italian, Chinese, and American, but prefers to "talk" with pencil and brush.

"What do you think of the political situation to-day?" he was asked this week. For answer he busied himself with pen, ink, and paper for five minutes and produced a sketch. It showed the "big four" representatives settling the business of Czechoslovakia over mugs of Munich beer and a dish labelled "Prague."

Here was an astounding caricature of Chamberlain, a Union Jack in the froth of his beer mug, Hitler, a swastika in his, Daladier seen with more perception than benevolence, Mussolini with shaven head and

globular eye, opening a wide and rapacious mouth for his share of the meal. "Plato has never had a drawing lesson," said his smiling mother. "He started to draw when he was 18 months old. He just draws whatever he sees or hears.