Biographical note

Gerald Scarfe began his career in the sixties working for Punch and Private Eye before taking a job as a political cartoonist for the Daily Mail. He then worked for Time magazine in New York before starting his fifty-year-long association with the Sunday Times. He drew weekly for the Evening Standard. His varied career has seen him work with Pink Floyd (The Wall, Wish You Were Here), Roger Waters and Eric Clapton (The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking), as a production designer for Disney (Hercules), costume and set designer for English National Ballet (The Nutcracker) and Los Angeles Opera (Fantastic Mr Fox) as well as produce such iconic images as those for the titles of Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister. His work has featured in the New Yorker and various BBC TV films such as Scarfe on Sex and Scarfe on Class. Exhibitions of his paintings and drawings have appeared in the Tate Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, as well as galleries in Australia, USA, Germany and Czech Republic. He is viewed by many as both a national treasure and a genius.