“Neville Chamberlain #2” – 1938

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In the year after Hirshman’s first attempt at caricaturizing British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and his derided endeavor to appease Hitler out of waging war, the artist’s 1938 piece caught the politician’s character more completely. While many caricaturists drew Chamberlain in possession of his ubiquitous umbrella (indeed, he was known as “Umbrella Man” after the title of a popular song at the time), none had used the real thing to portray Chamberlain’s tall and lanky body. Hirshman hung it loosely under a money pouch top hat embossed with his initials and with a pen brim, an allusion to his appeasement by signing the Munich Agreement. Lest the viewer be confused as to whom the umbrella belonged, Hirshman tagged it with a revealing necktie: “Neville Chamberlain, No. 10 Downing Street,” the London address of British prime ministers.

 

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