"I'm as liberal as the next man" John Glashan 1975
This stuck with me for half a century after it first made me laugh. Look at the way he leans forward to pronounce his authoritative inanity and the rapt (pissed) dinner party guests lapping it up. The faint suggestion "Peter de Wint" turns out to be hilarious (once I'd looked him up).
I thought of this cartoon after the discussion on whether we can separate art from the artist when their lives do not meet some modern standard.
You may think this odd, unconnected with the subject under discussion. However, this was my thought. There are so many levels on which to unpick what this cartoon expresses (part of John Glashan's genius). One is to see it as encapsulating a widespread outlook on art: as a canonised heritage or as "our history" or a series of "great artists".
It is in this context we found ourselves debating whether we should…