SHEPARD, 'CLEOPATRA AND THE LION', PENCIL, 1946

318 by 241mm., preliminary pencil drawing, mounted, framed and glazed, minor creases

EXHIBITED:
‘The Illustrators: The British Art of Illustration 1870-2009’, Chris Beetles Gallery, 2009, no 156; 'Images of Power: From the Jeffrey Archer Cartoon Collection', Monnow Valley Arts, 3 September - 30 October 2011

Preliminary drawing for Punch, 15 May 1946, page 419

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Using Tenniel’s famous composition for 'Dropping the Pilot', Shepard here dramatises the insistence of Egypt that, following the Second World War, Britain withdraw all her military forces and permit its absorption of the Sudan. As indicated by the key in Cleopatra’s hand, Suez would remain the moot point, and indeed lead to the crisis of 1956. The term ‘pilot’ was first applied to the nineteenth-century German Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, by the Austro-American cartoonist, Joseph Keppler. In March 1871, Keppler founded Puck and one of his early cartoons published in Puck showed Bismarck on a ship at the height of his powers; it was entitled ‘The Master Pilot of the Age’.

Following the accession of Emperor Wilhelm II to the German throne, in 1888, Bismarck’s influence began to wane, and he was forced to resign in the following year. This event was reported widely in the British press, Punch responding with John Tenniel’s famous cartoon, Dropping the Pilot, published on 29 March 1890.

Since it was first published, Tenniel’s image has often been reworked by other cartoonists in their attempts to represent a parallel situation, that is someone who once proved useful but is now to be jettisoned. The reworkings range from David Low showing Hitler dropping Hjmar Schacht as President of the Reichsbank (Evening Standard, 23 January 1939) to Drew Friedman showing Harold Ickes ushering Mark Penn from Hillary Clinton’s cockpit (New York Observer, 8 April 2008).