Gerald Scarfe: "I draw what I fear... world leaders misusing their power"

Not many people could lampoon the Iron Lady like Gerald Scarfe. The revered satirical cartoonist, still not pulling his pictorial punches today aged 77, depicted Margaret Thatcher in her political heyday as everything from a prehistoric Tory-dactyl to the sunken Belgrano.

Thatcher, of course, hasn’t been the only person to feel the sharp end of Scarfe’s pen, as regular targets Tony Blair, George Bush and Boris Johnson, among many others, know too well.

Scarfe’s monstrous and often controversial characterisations of politicians have been a figure of our newspapers for almost half a century. He started drawing for Punch and Private Eye in the early 1960s and is now best known for his unmistakable cartoons in The Sunday Times and The New Yorker – also branching into theatre and animation, most famously designing Pink Floyd’s pioneering The Wall album, film and tour.

Gerald Scarfe self portrait

His passion for drawing was sharpened during a terribly isolated childhood that was blighted by life-threatening chronic asthma. He spent most of his formative years alone at home, in hospital or travelling from doctor to doctor as his parents searched for a cure to his debilitating illness.

This solitude exposed Scarfe to the sort of traumatic experiences that, he says, developed his “dark side”, while also bringing his remarkable artistic talents to life. Here, Scarfe reflects on going nose-to-nose with his subjects, hallucinogenic drugs and taking the piss out of Boris…

I’m not naming any names (Nick Clegg) but have dull politicians killed satire?

I definitely think it has had an impact. Cameron, Clegg and Miliband really are a boring bunch. You can take the piss out of them because they are fallible. We tend to look for a bit of fun in Boris [Johnson] and Nigel Farage. At least they’ve got a bit of life, even if you don’t agree with them. I can’t see Boris as Prime Minister but there you are. I always draw him as a clown, which he is.

She didn’t seem to understand those who couldn’t help themselves. She didn’t have any sympathy

You’ve been in this game a long time. How does your work compare now to drawing the grand characters including Margaret Thatcher and Michael Heseltine in the 1980s?

They looked grand but at the same time they were the same crap as what we’ve got now. Thatcher was unique, being the first woman Prime Minister. I wasn’t a fan of hers. She didn’t seem to understand those who couldn’t help themselves. She didn’t have any sympathy. She was so acerbic and cutting and thrusting, I could always draw her as a knife or a dagger or something piercing. A caricature comes from the character of the person – you can’t stick it on them. I couldn’t draw bumbly old John Major as a knife or a dagger. It wasn’t in his personality, he was sort of grey.

Margaret Thatcher as Gerald Scarfe's "Torydactyl" cartoon

Did you ever meet Thatcher? Would it have been awkward?

No, we never met. I was in the same room as her once but I was never introduced. To be honest I don’t ever want to meet my victims or whatever you want to call them. I had lunch with Ted Heath [former PM] long ago when I was working with the Daily Mail and he was rather snotty to me. Every time I drew him after, I saw him as this snotty ‘snod’. I should be judging people based on what they are doing at the moment rather than whether they were unpleasant to me or even worse that they are nice! I might not want to draw them then.

You must receive a lot of angry letters about your cartoons?

Just a few days ago I drew Angela Merkel breastfeeding Italy, Spain and Greece and six female Labour MPs wrote saying, “How dare you do this to women”, and “You wouldn’t do this to a man”. They obviously haven’t seen my other work.

Gerald Scarfe's Tony Blair

What did drawing offer you as a child during your terribly difficult spell of illness?

It was a tremendous release. I was bedridden and hospitalised for most of my first 10 years. I spent a lot of time reading and making models – papier-mâché figures, puppets, toy theatres – but above all I would draw. This became my way of expressing myself. It’s still like that today. They were drawings of what I feared, which in those days was things like witches and werewolves. Now it’s world leaders misusing their power. I would also read anything I could get my hands on – my first book was Black Beauty, later on I read Crompton’s Just William and Agatha Christie, then classic pictorial American comics like the Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Huckleberry Finn.

My father wanted me to go into banking but luckily I failed all the auditions because I didn’t have the academic background

What sort of reaction did your drawings get when you were young?

My father was in banking and supported what I did but he never saw it as a viable way of life. He was right, of course, as it’s very tough to make a living from being an artist. I’ve been fantastically lucky. He wanted me to go into banking but luckily I failed all the auditions because I didn’t have the academic background. I gradually slipped into a reality that I would have to be an artist or nothing. I didn’t start that with much optimism and the people around me were certainly not optimistic of me making a living.

Gerald Scarfe's Boris Johnson

Did spending so much time as a child in adult hospital wards impact upon your drawings?

It gave me a dark side. I realised how vulnerable life is, how close we all are to something happening any minute that could take this miraculous life away. There’s always a shadow of that, certainly in my earlier drawings. These days I tend to go for the humour rather than the doom and gloom. Back in those days my favourite artist was Francis Bacon and he depicted people like I did – as lumps of flesh that are miraculously able to do things and walk about. I suppose there’s a very black side to my humour. Of course, it could be my asthmatic childhood. I’ve tried to psychoanalyse myself before. I had a lot of drugs for my asthma during my childhood. The drugs weren’t as sophisticated as they are now. A lot of them were hallucinatory. There was one, called ephedrine, that used to give me this sort of creamy, floaty feeling, where everything looked comfortable. There’s also the confinement of being a lonely child. If you’re sick then no one wants to be your friend or to come round and play. All of that could add up to a picture of anxiety, of a black view of what can happen in life.

You can describe someone in words as being funny but it’s not the same as making them look silly in a drawing

What is the future for cartoonists in the digital age of declining newsprint sales?

I don’t see why the whole thing won’t move online. It’s up to the cartoons to move across. It would be a great shame to lose this pictorial comment. It’s so immediate and if done well you get the point quickly and it makes you laugh. You can describe someone in words as being funny but it’s not the same as making them look silly in a drawing. I’ve moved from the ferocious stuff but I’m a great believer in making people look like idiots if they are. Making clowns of them, if that’s what they are. Not just Boris.