Low, Sir David (1891-1963), a British cartoonist, was famous for his caricatures of British statesmen. One of his best-known characters was Colonel Blimp, a caricature of a certain type of British conservative (see Colonel Blimp ). Low became equally well known for his caricatures ridiculing the German dictator Adolf Hitler, the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, and the Nazis during the 1930’s and 1940’s. By the end of World War II in 1945, Low had become a British institution. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill described Low as “the greatest of our modern cartoonists.”
David Alexander Cecil Low was born on April 7, 1891, in Dunedin, New Zealand. He became a cartoonist for the Sydney Bulletin in Australia in 1911. Low accepted an offer by the Cadbury Press in England to become a cartoonist for one of its newspapers. Low settled in the United Kingdom in 1919. In 1927, he became chief cartoonist for a London newspaper, the Evening Standard. In 1953, he joined the Manchester Guardian (now The Guardian). Low wrote his Autobiography in 1956. He was knighted in 1962. Low died on Sept. 19, 1963.
