12 Facts About Michael Cummings

Arthur Stuart Michael Cummings OBE was born on Leeds, Yorkshire, 1 June 1919, died London, 9 October 1997 and was a British newspaper cartoonist.

Michael Cummings was known as Michael Cummings and signed his work simply Cummings.

Michael Cummings was educated at The Hall, Hampstead, London, Gresham's School, in Norfolk, then at the Chelsea School of Art, London.

Michael Cummings was initially a supporter of the Labour Party and contributed illustrations for the pro-Labour magazine Tribune.

Michael Cummings later joined the Daily Express; he would subsequently draw most of his work for that newspaper and The Sunday Express.

Michael Cummings's move to these publications coincided with Cummings's moving to the political right.

Michael Cummings saw himself as "a rude little boy speaking out at the awkward moment", but to many of his critics he was a reactionary.

Michael Cummings was opposed to communism, and his cartoons frequently satirized both the Soviet Union and Maoist China.

In 1965, Cummings drew a cartoon depicting Lyndon B Johnson being entangled in a thorn tree with the head of a black man, while a British politician wearing blinkers watered a plant with the head of a black child.

In October 1971, Michael Cummings drew a cartoon titled "Father O'Brezhnev, Missionary to Ulster", which depicted Leonid Brezhnev as a Roman Catholic Priest who was supplying weapons to the IRA.

Michael Cummings responded that he had a "cartoonist's licence" to depict the Irish as "extremely violent, bloody-minded, always fighting, drinking enormous amounts, getting roaring drunk".

Michael Cummings added that the Provisional IRA's violent acts did tend to "make them look rather like apes, though that's rather hard luck on the apes".