JAK  (Raymond Allen Jackson) 1927-1997

“I think we should let the Germans keep it next time” (1992)

Visitez La Belle France, Fly Air France

51x59cm

Pen, ink and monochrome wash with inscriptions in pencil.

For the London Evening Standard

JAK was one of Britian’s best-known political cartoonists, working for the London Evening Standard and the Daily Mail between the 1950s and 1990s. He left school at the age of 14, and after a brief career as a messenger boy studied at Willesden College of Technology, studying art with the aim of becoming an art teacher. Following National Service (in the Territorial Army, teaching conscripts to paint), in 1950 he became a staff artist at Link House Publications, and then at advertising agency J Keymer & Co. Whilst working here he submitted cartoons to Punch and other journals, joining the Evening Standard in 1952 as illustrator, also drawing occasional cartoons. In 1966, following the suicide of ‘Vicky’ (Victor Weisz), he became policital cartoonist at the Evening Standard.

Some of his cartoons were highly controversial. In 1970 he caricatured power workers (then striking to improve their conditions) as stupid, greedy and deaf to reason; the entire Evening Standard staff nearly went on strike in response. In 1982 a cartoon in response to the Northern Ireland situation (he frequently depicted Irish people negatively) caused Ken Livingstone to withdraw all advertising from the Standard.

His style was distinctive, drawn in ink on 17″ x 21.5″ board using a mapping pen and brush. His signature was always in a bottom corner, with blob-like serifs, and the title and other instructions were drawn on the picture in pencil. He also drew cartoons for the Mail on Sunday, Daily Express, and Sunday Express.