Milk Snatcher – The Thatcher Drawings

Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle

GERALD Scarfe's cartoons are instantly recognisable and his caricatures of Margaret Thatcher are among the his most memorable.

Mindful of requirements for political balance in the run-up to a General Election, this is a review about art – hard though it is to separate his images from attitudes towards the woman he "loved to loathe".

The show is the fourth in the museum's annual contemporary slot curated by Greville Worthington, who has amassed an impressive collection of drawings, many not seen before, covering the 22 years of Margaret Thatcher's career, from her early days as a minister to being overthrown by a coterie of male colleagues.

They are divided into headings, including the Falkland War, her relationship with Ronald Reagan and battles with trade unions and over European budgets.

Scarfe belongs to a tradition of excoriating satire calling politicians to account dating back to James Gillray in the 18th century. His lampooning is as pitiless as the subject's perceived ruthlessness.

Angular precision, often to grotesque effect, distorts facial features and bodies into extreme poses. Mrs Thatcher's nose, in reality unremarkable, was elongated into the shape of a scythe and became her trademark feature. She appears as Britannia, but also as rapacious bird or beast. Her alleged rivalry with the Queen offers humour, graciously bending and butting Elizabeth I off their shared platform, both identically dressed in a blue gown.

The inventiveness of the imagery astounds even when it offends sensibilities, as when he literally strips this woman of dignity.

In Decline, the final section, he returns more often to human figuration, but with no lessening of ferocious attack, symbolised by one cartoon showing hounds ranged at her throat. Drawings are mostly in black ink, but several illustrate how his use of colour heightens the provocative effects.

The exhibition continues until June 7.

Pru Farrier