THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
CH R I STI AN A DA M S Christian Adams (born 1966) The bright, bold cartoons of Christian Adams exhibit a particularly masterly use of space to dramatise current affairs. Christian Adams was born in Warlingham, Surrey, on 10 June 1966, one of five children of the illustrator, Tecla Marus, and her husband, an enthusiastic amateur cartoonist, who owned a clothing factory. He started to draw at the age of three – producing many images of giraffes and hippos – and later absorbed the influences of Walt Disney and Charles M Schulz’s Peanuts. He attended Streete Court School, Godstone, Surrey (1972-78), and Worth School, Crawley, West Sussex (1979-84), before studying Graphic Design and Illustration at Bristol Polytechnic (1985-89).
Adams began his career in the late 1980s standing in for Wally Fawkes (Trog) by doing the ‘Profile’ caricature for the Observer, and quickly became a successful freelance cartoonist working for such magazines as The Listener, Radio Times, Solicitors Journal and Time Out. In 1994, he became Staff Features Cartoonist at the Evening Standard. 10 years later, he moved to the Telegraph group, working first for the Sunday Telegraph and from 2007 as a political cartoonist for both the Sunday and Daily Telegraph. He also does regular covers for Money Week and The Spectator.
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601 IRAQ/LIBYA signed and dated 21.03.11 pen ink and watercolour with bodycolour 10 x 14 1⁄2 inches Illustrated: Daily Telegraph, 21 March 2011
602 OBAMA BEHEADING OSAMA signed and dated 03.05.11 pen ink and watercolour with bodycolour 10 x 14 3⁄4 inches Provenance: The Jeffrey Archer Political Cartoon Collection Illustrated: Daily Telegraph, 3 May 2011 Exhibited: ‘Images of Power: from the Jeffrey Archer Cartoon Collection’, Monnow Valley Arts, September-October 2011