Pont Cartoons (Graham Laidler)
245 images Created 10 Oct 2011
Cartoons from Punch magazine by Pont (Graham Laidler).
Pont captured the quintessential 'British Character' from the 1930s and early 1940s. His was a message of stoicism, eccentricity, charm and pride that would have been acknowledged by readers of Punch around the globe and in the Empire. Although English, Pont's drawings were an outsider's view: mirror-postcards back home from his adopted Austria. Cartoons show the English in Travel, putting up with weather, mishaps, discomfort and danger with Coolness, a sense of Class, History and Culture, all the while showing the fabric of their society in the Fashion, Architecture and Modes of behaviour like despondency, self deprecating-heroism and the Stiff Upper Lip. Collectively these form a portrait of a Britain that knew its place in the world and where anything was possible.
Pont captured the quintessential 'British Character' from the 1930s and early 1940s. His was a message of stoicism, eccentricity, charm and pride that would have been acknowledged by readers of Punch around the globe and in the Empire. Although English, Pont's drawings were an outsider's view: mirror-postcards back home from his adopted Austria. Cartoons show the English in Travel, putting up with weather, mishaps, discomfort and danger with Coolness, a sense of Class, History and Culture, all the while showing the fabric of their society in the Fashion, Architecture and Modes of behaviour like despondency, self deprecating-heroism and the Stiff Upper Lip. Collectively these form a portrait of a Britain that knew its place in the world and where anything was possible.
