Here are a few words I spoke at the opening of the exhibition on 21st November 2024
First I would like to thank the people who actually put the exhibition up, and without whom there would be no Cartoon Museum: the Volunteers, not to mention Joe, Holly, Amber, Steve, Roy, and everyone who works to keep this amazing place going, not to mention my fellow Trustees, led by Ollie Preston who dared to take on this apparent flood of anti-Royal calumny and filth/feast of light-hearted Royal hi-jinks.
To Prince, latterly King Charles for providing such a worthy, not to say rich target, and to Corinne Villegier and everyone at the St-Just-Le-Martel Salon International du Caricature, Dessins de Presse in France for commissioning this exhibition back in the summer of 2023.
But most of all I would like to thank my old friend and co-curator of this satirical feast, Olivier Auvray who organised the whole thing and gave me something to get my teeth into, and to take my mind off the unfortunate fact that the Guardian, for whom I had worked for forty two years and where most of the cartoons in the Windsor Tapestry were first published, through a long, miserable process involving gaslighting, ghosting and some notorious GUIDELINES FOR EDITORIAL CARTOONISTS issued by diktat in the Spring of 2023, were about to get rid of me for good.
Sure enough they did, only a few days after the triumphant opening of La Tapisserie de Windsor in St Just, and on an entirely Trumped-up charge (if you will pardon the expression) of using an Anti-Semitic Trope in a cartoon about Benjamin Netanyahu in the early days of the War in Gaza. That is the man for whom the International Criminal Court has just this day issued an arrest warrant.
Subsequently the Israeli Cartoonists association, in a unanimous vote, declared that my cartoon was in no way anti-Semitic, but then, what would a load of Israeli cartoonists know about antisemitism?
So, paradoxically, I would like to thank the Guardian for being bold enough and generous enough to publish my cartoons, while paying me for the privilege, and for letting me get away with it for so long. Our relationship could be awkward, and sometimes prickly, but was mostly based on trust, and I am actually still very proud of what I was able to do for, and with them.
The essence of a cartoon is that it is autonomous. It stands there, defying you to laugh, cry or react in some other fashion. No matter whether it is funny or not, political or non-political, well drawn, badly drawn, in black and white, colour, in print, on a screen, in a phone, or on the wall of a Museum.
What it does not (or should not) do is EDITORIALISE, or in other words express the opinion of an ad hoc committee of senior journalists. That is what Editorials do, unsigned, which is why so few people read them.
Finally I would like to thank you all for defying the weather and coming here tonight, especially to colleagues, former colleagues, to friends and to family, and to two people in particular, one of whom could not be here because he is only two and home in bed in Brighton. I would like to thank my grandson Harry Black (not to mention all seven of my other grandchildren) and my partner Heather for showing me what has been most important during this unlooked-for year of enforced retirement. Thank you all!
Enjoy the show! Buy the book! Buy the catalogue! Buy the Tea Towel!!!
Tags: CARTOON MUSEUM, KING CHARLES III, PRINCE OF WALES, ROYALTY, WINDSOR TAPESTRY