Scarfe, Gerald 1936-

PERSONAL:

Born June 1, 1936, in London, England. Education: Attended the Royal College of Art, London, England.

CAREER:

Writer, artist, animator, editorial cartoonist, set designer, costume designer, screenwriter, director, and illustrator. Time, cartoonist and illustrator, 1966; Daily Mail, political cartoonist, 1966; Sunday Times, London, England, political cartoonist, 1967—; cartoonist for Punch and Private Eye magazines during the 1960s. Animation designer and director for motion pictures, including Pink Floyd's "The Wall". Writer and director of documentary films for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Channel Four. Exhibitions: "U.S. Election '68," Waddell Gallery, New York, NY, 1968; "Hung by Scarfe," Sears Vincent Price Gallery, Chicago, IL, 1969; "Gerald Scarfe 60-70," Waddell Gallery, New York, NY, 1970; "Gerald Scarfe," Osaka, Japan, 1970; "Gerald Scarfe, Sculpture," Pavilion d'Humour, Montreal, Canada, 1970-73; "Gerald Scarfe at the Festival Hall," 1983; "Gerald Scarfe Meets Walt Disney," Museum of the Moving Image, South Bank, London, 1997; exhibition of drawings for Hercules, Z Gallery, New York, NY, 1997; "Scarfe at the N.P.G.," National Portrait Gallery, London, 1999; "Gerald Scarfe in Southwark," 2001; "Heroes and Villains—Scarfe at the NPG," 2003; exhibition at fine arts society, London, 2005.

AWARDS, HONORS:

British Press Award, Cartoonist of the Year, 2006; Laurence Olivier Award for sets and costumes for Le Dindon; BAFTA Award for autobiographical film Scarfe by Scarfe.

WRITINGS:

Gerald Scarfe's People, D. White (New York, NY), 1966.

(Illustrator) Sketches from Vietnam, Cape (London, England), 1968.

(Illustrator) Pink Floyd's "The Wall," lyrics by Roger Waters, photographs by David Appleby, Avon (New York, NY), 1982.

Gerald Scarfe, Thames & Hudson (London, England), 1982.

Scarfe by Scarfe, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 1986.

(Illustrator) Disney's Hercules: Hades, the Truth at Last, transcribed by Nancy Krulik, Disney Press (New York, NY), 1997.

Heroes & Villains, National Portrait Gallery Publications (London, England), 2003.

Drawing Blood: Forty-five Years of Scarfe Uncensored, Little, Brown (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor of cartoons and illustrations to periodicals, including Vogue and the New Yorker.

Creator, producer, and animator of animated film, Long Drawn-Out Trip, 1972; creator and director of autobiographical film, Scarfe by Scarfe, BBC Television, 1987; director and presenter of television films Scarfe on Art, 1991, Scarfe on Sex, 1991, Scarfe in Paradise, 1992, and Scarfe on Class, 1992; director and presenter of Horst, BBC Omnibus, 1992.

SIDELIGHTS:

Gerald Scarfe is an artist, animator, writer, and filmmaker whose distinctive style of animation and artwork was perhaps most widely viewed in the film Pink Floyd's "The Wall." Much of his early work was as a satirical cartoonist in magazines such as Punch and Private Eye. He has been the political cartoonist for the Sunday Times in London for almost four decades. In his early career, Scarfe served as a Vietnam correspondent for the London Times, recording his observations and impressions in powerful artwork. A prolific designer, Scarfe has also worked on many stage productions, functioning as the set designer and costume designer for performances ranging from ballets to plays, operas to ice-skating extravaganzas. Much of his work as a director and filmmaker has been with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Channel Four, where he produced live-action programming and documentaries. His long association with the musical group Pink Floyd began in 1973, and he has created graphics and animation for the group's numerous tours and albums.

Scarfe's "needle sharp caricatures have burst many an inflated ego," observed Danuta Kean in the Bookseller, and the many drawings collected in Heroes & Villains are no exception. The "book juxtaposes Scarfe's iconoclastic images of great Britons living and dead against their portrait" in Britain's National Portrait Gallery, Kean noted. Each set also includes an essay by another prominent figure discussing the portrait subject. Kean concluded, "As one would expect, Scarfe shows no mercy," setting his satiric cartoons in sharp contrast to the dignified NPG portraits, vigorously lampooning celebrities, politicians, and entertainment figures.

Drawing Blood: Forty-five Years of Scarfe Uncensored contains a multitude of caricatures and drawings from the prolific Scarfe, covering subjects from 1960s icons like the Beatles to more contemporary figures such as Eminem and President George W. Bush. Scarfe's "keen eye for detail, his fidelity to each subject and his unique sense of over-crowded space set him … apart" from other cartoonists and caricaturists, commented a Publishers Weekly contributor. The book also includes material such as newspaper clippings, contemporary ephemera, and criticism of Scarfe's work. Scarfe himself provides commentary on the subjects of his drawings, the social and political climate of the times when the drawings were made, and the controversies that often surrounded his work. The collection's "fiercely angry and sometimes pornographic drawings" condense the essence of Scarfe's "outrage at political corruption, abuse of power, and the destruction of war," commented Michael Dashkin in Library Journal.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Bookseller, August 15, 2003, Danuta Kean, "Sticking the Pen In: Gerald Scarfe Has Collaborated with the National Portrait Gallery to Show That What a Portrait Conceals, a Caricaturist Will Reveal," review of Heroes & Villains, p. 28.

Library Journal, July 1, 2006, Michael Dashkin, review of Drawing Blood: Forty-five Years of Scarfe Uncensored, p. 76.

Publishers Weekly, March 6, 2006, review of Drawing Blood, p. 62.

ONLINE

Encyclopedia Britannica Online,http://www.britannica.com/ (December 16, 2006), biography of Gerald Scarfe.

Roger Waters International Fan Club Web site,http://www.rogerwaters.org/ (December 16, 2006), Michael Simone, interview with Gerald Scarfe.*