A critical spy in the shadow of fascism

The new exhibition at the Political Cartoon Gallery and its accompanying book Low and the Dictators is really the story of an obsession.

David Low, one of the 20th-century's most prolific and influential cartoonists, spent 20 years as a stalker, a detective who sifted through the events and evidence of both Hitler and Mussolini's lives and then produced hundreds of cartoons to illustrate his conclusions.

Low first drew Mussolini in 1924 and Hitler in 1930 and gallery owner and curator Timothy Benson's new book takes the viewer through from these initial cartoons to the spring of 1945 and the death of both dictators.

It is a rich archive of material, a visual record of the rise of fascism and the faltering attempts of countries like Britain and France to deal with this new political reality.

As a New Zealander who first came to Britain in 1919, Low perhaps had that slightly detached view which enables the observer to note a society's foibles and develop them into a theme. This ability helped him to detect, very early in their careers, the threat posed by Hitler and Mussolini, even as some admired their apparent dynamism.

Writing about Mussolini in his autobiography, Low commented: "Here was the man of force triumphant ... an impressive contrast to the delays of the democracies. A strong hand at the helm. Pity we didn't have one like him here, old boy."

Having detected the superficial appeal of dictatorship, especially in the harsh landscape of the great depression, Low began his pursuit of Hitler and Mussolini, reading their speeches and following their policies and plans.

It was a classic, sustained case of the invention of two cartoon personalities which Low then presented to his "customer-collaborators," as he once described the Evening Standard's readers.

Interestingly, Low's very first drawings of Mussolini as a blundering athlete coming to grief in a long jump competition and Hitler as a boy trying on a Kaiser costume did establish a rough rule for the way in which the cartoonist depicted the two men.

Mussolini was always a bruiser with a heavy, stubble-shadowed jaw and battering ram head, while Hitler retained a touch of the schoolboy, his tiny black moustache looking like a stick-on gift from a cracker, his uniform ill-fitting, the jacket slipping off his narrow shoulders and britches falling into corrugated folds around his calves.

It would be a mistake to imagine that Hitler's rather juvenile appearance meant that Low did not take him seriously. Indeed, he assumed Hitler would do just as he warned - an approach that many politicians took longer to learn.

Taking Hitler at face value enabled Low to produce a stream of prescient cartoons, such as Strengthening Their Hands, published in the Standard on October 13 1930. Here, Hitler is shown with a pair of bellows, fanning a bonfire of diplomacy fed by futile treaties and half-hearted resolutions, labelled "fool's talk" and "internationalist swank."

Other European leaders, including France's prime minister Tardieu, warm their hands by the fire, as yet unaware of its capacity to consume them. It seems as if Low was already carrying images of the Reichstag fire and May 1933 book burnings in his head.

During the 1930s, Low immersed himself in political ideology, dividing one wall of his studio into four sections representing his collected research on communism, fascism, nazism and liberal democracy. He found nazism and fascism "nebulous" and "unstable" compared to communism and liberal democracy, a response which perhaps helps to explain his determination to nail Hitler and Mussolini in his cartoons.

"Getting" a character is, of course, a task that cartoonists wrestle with every day and Low must have felt gratified by the response that his Hitler and Mussolini received from the men themselves.

By 1935, his cartoons had been banned in Italy and Germany and, in 1937, Goebbels told the Conservative politician Lord Halifax that Hitler was extremely irritated by Low's work.

Halifax approached the Standard's manager Michael Wardell and asked if Low could not be persuaded to tone down his criticism of Hitler.

Wardell pointed out that he could refuse to publish anything blasphemous or obscene, but Low's drawings did not fall into that category. "They just make you mad if you don't agree with them," said Wardell. Surely a defining characteristic of a great cartoon.

Although this book and exhibition focus on Low's lesser-known cartoons and admirers will no doubt mourn the absence of classics such as Rendezvous, in which Hitler and Stalin doff their caps and exchange a courtly greeting over Poland's corpse, there is still a wealth of memorable images.

Piece by Piece shows Mussolini crouched on a fallen column, his empire collapsing around him as he stares into a mirror searching for signs of salvation and glory.

In a final act of uncanny anticipation, Low drew Last Shot for The Hitler Legend, a picture of Goebbels and Hitler reclining in front of a swastika flag, Hitler pointing to a proclamation: "I die for Germany or vice versa or something." This cartoon was published on the day Hitler committed suicide, just before Low received news of his death.

To look at this collection of cartoons is to see how Low shadowed the dictators, producing reflections of their ambitions and delusions, triumphs and tribulations which reveal rather than conceal. His identification with the subject is such that, even as Europe burns, he can fool the viewer into wondering, just for a moment, about who is more powerful - the artist or the dictators?

Low's cartoons will be on display at The Political Cartoon Gallery, 32 Store Street, London WC1 from tomorrow until June 14.

The launch of Low and the Dictators will take place tomorrow from 6-8pm. The book is normally priced at £17.99, but copies are available to Morning Star readers at £15, either at the launch or via the gallery. This price includes postage and packing if required. For information, please ring: (020) 7580-1114.