Jeffrey Archer’s cartoons – a big draw
Political cartoons enjoyed a brief moment in the sun last week, with the sale of the novelist and politician Jeffrey Archer’s cartoon collection. It is not a market that often grabs the headlines, because cartoons are generally of low value relative to other forms of modern and contemporary art, and barely cover the costs involved in cataloguing a sale. Historically, while Sotheby’s includes political cartoons in its annual book illustration sale near Christmas, it has only held one other sale devoted to the genre – works by Gerald Scarfe, in 2017.
The sale of a collection put together by a personality like Archer, though, was an exception – an event, even. During the past 25 years he has assembled 225 works by 65 artists, from James Gillray, the early-18th-century master of political satire, to a recent drawing by The Daily Telegraph’s Matt.
Conducted by Lord Poltimore, the sale realised an above estimate £570,000, setting several record prices in the process. Poltimore has known Archer for many years and appears as the art expert in Archer’s 2016 This Was a Man, the final instalment of The Clifton Chronicles. He, in turn, quoted liberally from Archer literature on the rostrum – “not a penny more?” he asked cheekily, while coaxing bids.
Archer’s interest in political cartoons is encyclopedic. But, as his collection began to envelop his homes, his wife, who prefers his Impressionist paintings, protested, and efforts were made to place the collection in a museum. That was in 2011, and while the Ashmolean and the V&A, among other museums, looked and appreciated it, none was prepared to commit as much wall space as Archer wanted. So, he and Chris Beetles, the dealer who advised him on the formation of his cartoon collection, decided to exhibit the collection at Sotheby’s and donate the proceeds to charity.
Estimates were set temptingly low. A 1914 drawing of the Kaiser watering his soldiers like plants sold for exactly the same price Archer bought it for 11 years ago. But such sales were outweighed by high prices for other works. A rare watercolour by Gillray imagining the consequences of a successful French invasion of Britain in 1806, sold for a record £47,500; and a drawing of prime minister Gladstone’s cabinet as apes (a reference to Darwin’s theory of evolution) by John Tenniel also fetched a record at £27,500.
Two other records demonstrate a rapid increase in value of more than 30 per cent a year since they were purchased by Archer. A bold Nazi leg-pull at the Nuremberg trials by David Low, for instance, cost £2,750 in 2011 and sold here for £20,000; while Peter Brookes’s sequence of Queen Elizabeth II demonstrating her football skills in response to questions about her retirement sold for £8,125 compared with the £1,750 it cost.
Cartoons concerning Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Margaret Thatcher had their moments, but Winston Churchill was the most consistent performer throughout and, with him in the picture, you had to pay well over estimate.
The first cartoon Archer ever bought, in 1987, was by Ronald Searle and referred to a controversial portrait of Churchill by Graham Sutherland. Archer had originally paid £1,750 for it, but it sold for £11,000, double its estimate. Other cartoonists whose Churchill images made record prices included Vicky (The Daily Mirror), Steven Spurrier (Illustrated London News), Garland (The Daily Telegraph), Nibs (Vanity Fair) and the inimitable Max Beerbohm, whose Forties profile of Churchill puffing at a fat cigar, estimated at £6,000, fetched the top price of £47,500.
Chris Beetles thinks such prices will persuade people to look at cartoons more seriously. So, while it was farewell to Jeffrey Archer’s collection, the sale may also represent a turning point for the cartoon market.
Winston Churchill was the most consistent performer throughout