The TES’s Martin Rowson has been named political cartoonist of the year. It is the second time Mr Rowson has won the Cartoon Art Trust’s award.
Mr Rowson sketches for a number of national newspapers and also Tribune magazine and The Erotic Review. His caustic wit has been applied to many of the country’s political figures, not least Charles Clarke, the Education Secretary.
“Charles Clarke is my all-time favourite person to draw,” said Mr Rowson.
“He is the easiest cartoon caricature to draw because he is a caricature in himself. You just have to look at him, he’s fatty big ears.”
Mr Rowson’s favourite of his own cartoons appeared in the Guardian earlier this year. It featured two Western boys sheltering in the ruins of Baghdad.
One reminds them of “what we’re fighting for” while the other says he is getting ready to cash in on new markets by selling pairs of trainers to the locals once the fighting has stopped.
Mr Rowson, who is 44 and from London, started sketching for a living 21 years ago when he left university. He won the Cartoon Arts Trust’s political cartoonist of the year in 2000 and the Political Cartoon Society’s political cartoon of the year in 2002.
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