Victor ‘Vicky’ Weisz was born in Berlin, Germany to Hungarian-Jewish parents in 1913. After early painting studies, drawing cartoons freelance, and the suicide of his father in 1928, Vicky immigrated to London in 1935 to escape Nazi persecution. His political critiques and dry humour saw him become one of the best-known satirists in the UK and he contributed in exile to multiple magazines, including The New Statesman, Punch, The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Express, with his caricature of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan as 'Supermac' becoming one of his most enduring creations.
Cartoonist Victor Weisz, known professionally as ‘Vicky’, was born in Berlin, Germany to Hungarian-Jewish parents on 25 April 1913. Aged 11 he studied with the painter Tennstedt before enrolling at the Berlin School of Art in 1928. Following his father's suicide later the same year, aged just 15, Weisz began work as a freelance caricaturist, joining the graphics department of the radical anti-Hitler journal 12 Uhr Blatt. By 1929 he was appointed their sports and theatre cartoonist, signing his work "V. Weiss." In 1933 the paper was taken over by the Nazis and although Weisz’s Hungarian passport protected him from immediate incarceration, his open opposition to the regime made it dangerous for him to remain in Germany. In 1935 he immigrated to England, settling in London.
Weisz swiftly obtained work, drawing caricatures and cartoons for various newspapers and periodicals, including the Evening Standard, the Daily Telegraph's 'Peterborough' column, World Film News (the 'Cockalorum' series), Sunday Chronicle (the strip 'Vicky by Vicky'), Punch, Daily Mail ('Funny Figures' series), Daily Mirror ('Nazi Nuggets' series), Sketch, Lilliput, New Statesman, and the Daily Express. In 1939, after a trial replacing Australian-born cartoonist, Will Dyson on The Daily Herald – the job eventually went to Scottish cartoonist, George Whitelaw – Weisz began working for the pro-Liberal News Chronicle. The editor, Gerard Harry suggested Weisz spend a year studying English society and culture and, in 1941, he joined the staff as the paper's political cartoonist, also drawing strips such as 'Weekend Fantasia' and 'Young Vicky's Almanack.' In 1947 he became a naturalised British citizen. During the 1940s, Vicky maintained his political stance, exhibiting work in an Anti-fascist exhibition at the Modern Art Gallery, London founded in 1941 by left-wing émigré, Jack Bilbo ( see Jack Bilbo by Jack Bilbo, 1948).
At the News Chronicle, Weisz developed the two distinct styles that he would use throughout his career. His cartoons were mainly exaggeratedly comic, characterised by thin black lines; however, when tackling subjects about which he felt strongly, his style was looser, sketchier and less refined, reminiscent of the work of German printmaker, Kathe Kollwitz and Polish émigré artist, Feliks Topolski. Weisz’s political critiques and dry humour saw him become one of the most recognisable satirists in England. His politically-charged work ranged broadly and in 1943 he made multiple drawings of the victims of the East India famine. From 1950 onwards, Vicky showed regularly with Ben Uri, exhibiting in 1950 alongside a roster of renowned Jewish cartoonists, including Joss, Ross, Ralph Sallon, fellow émigré, Walter Trier, and Mark Wayner. Of his solo show at Ben Uri in 1976, émigré art historian, Helen Rosenau, wrote: 'To those of us who came from Germany the most remarkable fact of the exhibition is perhaps the realisation how intimately Vicky knew and appreciated the English scene, English as the English or perhaps more so' (AJR Information, August 1976, p. 12).
Weisz’s 14-year stint at the News Chronicle ended abruptly, following disagreements with its new editor-in-chief, Robert Cruikshank and, in 1954, he began work at the Daily Mirror producing his Nazi Nugget series. In 1958, he moved to the Evening Standard where under renowned editor Charles Wintour, with complete creative freedom, he produced his 'most memorable creation' (Bryant, 2000, p. 236), Supermac (a parody of Superman based on Conservative Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan). Although the caricature intended to satirise Macmillan, ironically, it often worked in his favour. 'Supermac' confirmed Weisz as one of the most influential political cartoonists, and Michael Foot called him 'the best cartoonist in the world' (https://www.cartoons.ac.uk/cartoonist-biographies/u-v/VictorWeisz_Vicky.html). In 1960 Vicky was voted Cartoonist of the Year by Granada TV’s What the Papers Say. In 1965 he turned down the Cartoonists Club of Great Britain's award for Political Cartoonist of the Year.
Aside from his cartoon work, Vicky is also credited as designing the logo for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). Latterly, Weisz suffered with poor mental health. Victor Weisz committed suicide in London, England in 1966. A full page 'In Memoriam' appeared in April 1966, written (in German) by émigré writer 'PEM' (AJR Information, April 1966), while, in 1976, a memorial concert was held at the Festival Hall in front of the Prime Minister and leaders of the opposition. In 1986 Ben Uri lent works to a UK exhibition, Vicky: The Cartoons of Victor Weisz 1913-1966, beginning at the National Portrait Gallery, London then touring to Hereford City Museum and Art Gallery; Victoria Art Gallery, Bath; and the City Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent. In 1996, an English Heritage blue plaque was unveiled outside Vicky's former home in Welbeck Street, central London. His work is represented in UK public collections including Ben Uri Collection, British Cartoon Archive and The National Archives in London; archival items, including illustrated correspondence with his fourth wife, Berlin-born designer, Inge Lew, are held at Hull University Archives.
Vicky in the Ben Uri collection
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Vicky]