Peter Brookes

Peter D. Brookes, (born 28 September 1943) After school, he initially joined the RAF to train as a pilot and studied for a University of London BA degree at the Royal Air Force College Cranwell, but left to go to art college in Manchester. He then attended the Central School of Art and Design in London. He had a short stint as a political cartoonist for the New Statesman, before returning to academia and lecturing at the Central School of Art and the Royal College of Art. For a time, he worked as cover artist for The Spectator but, in 1992, he moved to The Times, as its leader-page cartoonist, at the invitation of its newly appointed editor, Peter Stothard. —Brookes said: "you are able to depict crap and fornication and that sort of thing". He was also the subject of an exhibition at the Chris Beetles Gallery in London in October of that year.

With the formation of the coalition government in 2010, he began a notable series of cartoons known as the "Westminster Academy", which depicted Nick Clegg as a public school fag to a red cheeked David Cameron, who was portrayed as a prefect dressed in an Eton suit and Union Jack waistcoat, with Boris Johnson and George Osborne also appearing in some cartoons as his cronies. During this period, he depicted leader of the opposition Ed Miliband and shadow chancellor Ed Balls as Wallace and Gromit.

Technique Brookes uses T. H. Saunders paper, on which he draws with Pelikan black ink and a dip pen, equipped with Gillott nibs, as well as watercolour and gouache. He says, "There are three stages to the way I draw cartoons: first they are rendered loosely in soft pencil, then I overlay that with pen and Indian ink, and finally I add tone and colour with watercolour." Political Cartoon Society: "Cartoonist of the Year" (2006, 2009) Cartoon Art Trust Award: "Political Cartoonist of the Year" (1996, 1998, 2006,