Gerald Scarfe, Britain’s most daring and controversial satirical artist, is perhaps best known for his political drawings, which have appeared in innumerable newspapers and magazines, above all in the Sunday Times. Monsters brings together a vivid selection of drawings from his fifty-year career. With razor wit and exuberant artistry, Scarfe lampoons political ambition, scandal and disaster in inimitable style. Of this brilliantly entertaining journey through domestic strife and international posturing, he says,

 

‘I have always been haunted by monsters, and now the monsters of my childhood nightmares seem to rule the world. Fifty years of monstrous presidents, prime ministers, dictators, tyrants and politicians stalk these pages: some merely monstrously arrogant, devious or inept; others corrupt, wicked, vile and murderous.

 

‘My only relief is to pin the creatures down on paper in all their fantastic crookedness. The subtitle of this book is How George Bush Saved The World, And Other Tall Tales. These tall tales include: How Bill Clinton Did Not Have Sex With That Woman; The Caring Mrs Thatcher, How John Major Brought Family Values Back To The Nation and Tony Blair: Peace Envoy.’

 

Artist, stage designer, political cartoonist and satirist, Gerald Scarfe has given us some of the most famous and daring images of the twentieth century. During a prolific and varied career, he has worked with innumerable British and American icons, from Pink Floyd to Disney, Private Eye to Time magazine, the English National Ballet to the Los Angeles Opera, the Sunday Times to the New Yorker. He lives in London with his family.