“SPY’S” FIRST CARICATURE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2758, 12 March 1910, Page 4 (Supplement)

“SPY’S” FIRST CARICATURE.

HOW' A SUBJECT SHOULD BE V STUDIED.

Once upon a time there was a famous caricaturist who professed/ to teach, the art of caricature. Of course, none of the pupils learnt it, because caricature cannot be taught. I doubt if it has ever been acquired; it is an innate gift. As a schoolboy at Eton I could no more ’help doing caricatures ol my schoolfellows and my masters than I could' have resisted the seduction of cream tarts. It was in the blood, as I came, of a long line of artistic ancestry (counting four Royal Academicians amongst them) on both sides of the house. In due time a caricature of mine of Professor Owen, entitled “Old Bones, v came under the notice of an old family friend, fc'ir John Everett Millais, and- with that drawing my professional career as a caracturist for Vanity Fair began. It might be or interest to some if I again record how I came to adopt the nom de crayon “Spy.” Mr. Thomas Gibson Bowles, who was the proprietor of Vanity Fair at the time I submitted my first cartoon, requested me to invent some characteristic signature consisting of three letters. I worked three initials into the form and semblance of a jester's bauble. But that did not please him. Thereupon he threw me over a dictionary, and asked me to choose a three-letter word which would constitute an appropriate signature. The book, opened in the middle of the “S” pages. Near to the top of the first column was the word “Spy,” one of the meanings of which was given as “to observe.” Whereupon I adopted the word as a pencilname, and I have caricatured under it ever since.

In order to obtain a successful result very careful observation is necessarjg whether drawing from Nature or memory. In studying a subject, weakness or strength of character should be grasped at first; but almost equally important is to note every detail of dress —the shape and pitch of a hat, for instance —for these are essential to a- caricature. Self-consciousness, and sometimes nervousness, shows itself in various ways. The fact is that few men know what they appear to others. I have known a peer express an objection to being drawn with spats, because he did not consider they looked well in a picture, athougk he always wore them. Another, who had been Splendidly -caricatured' by PoUligrini, said to me: “1 get the shivers when I am in the room with that man, ever since ho so grossly libelled me. If there is one thing upon which I pride myself it is my physique, and he has made me bent and stooping.” And yet his lordship’s stoop was the first thing one noticed about him.— Strand.