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Catalogue information
LastDodo number
5892077
Area
Drawings / paintings
Title
Attlee’s balancing act
Artist
Art object
Art Movement / style
Genre
Material
Technique used
Colouring
Dimensions
56 x 38 cm
Series / hero
Collection / set
Number
Addition to number
Year
1950
Country
Language
Details
Original editorial cartoon on card in ink and crayon for the New York Daily Mirror, 1950, shows a ‘Labour Govt.’ balancing act featuring Attlee in front of an orchestra in a music hall/vaudeville setting and about to topple over. Churchill waits below, doing his own balancing act. Clement Attlee was British prime minister between 1945 and 1951, leading a reform government which changed the face of Britain, but he would lose the 1951 election to Churchill and the Conservatives. The balancing act refers to the many difficulties facing Attlee, for instance within his own party in terms of implementing socialist policies and in foreign affairs in terms of trying to maintain Britain’s role in world affairs with very limited resources. Churchill described him as a ‘modest man who has a good deal to be modest about’, but despite his lack of charisma Attlee was probably one of the best British prime ministers, certainly of the twentieth century. Churchill’s own balancing act as leader of the opposition was to modernize the Conservative party (and himself) and make them fit for government in the modern world. Attlee once described him as ‘fifty percent genius, fifty percent bloody fool’, which was not too wide of the mark - Churchill was a gifted man but stuck in the past in almost all respects. Card size 56 x 38 cm (22 x 15 inch), image size 44 x 29 cm, signed lower right, in very good condition.