Vicky the Britisher

The skill with which the young Viktor Weisz (a refugee Hungarian Jew from Berlin) assimilated distinctive ‘British’ idioms into his work, prompted by the editor of The News Chronicle Gerald Barry and his colleague Richard Winnington, was a key factor in his success as a political cartoonist from 1940 onwards, and has frequently been commented on. This essay fleshes out the portrait of the ‘British’ Vicky in two ways: first, by tracing in detail the development of his style in his early years on The News Chronicle, cataloguing and analysing his use of British literature and visual culture; and, second, by situating his work in relation to the field of political cartoons of the period, including the work of other, generally less successful émigré artists, and to constructions of national identity in the media.