James Gillray

Happy Birthday James Gillray!! British illustrator born in 1757, Gillray was a satirical caricaturist and printmaker. He began his career apprenticed to a letter engraver at an early age; the earliest surviving engraving from age 12. Bored with that he wandered with a group of traveling musicians for a time, returned and went to the Royal Academy. His political cartoons were aimed at “radicals” as well as religious leaders. When asked why he had strayed from his liberal views of the past he stated that he had to please the buyers controlling the purse strings in order to make a living! His cartoons eventually fell out of favor and Gillray slipped into insanity, being cared for in the last 5 years of his life.