When Did You Last See Your Führer?
WAG 1994.119
Information
Terence Parkes (1927 - 2003), better known as 'Larry', was one of the most prolific and popular of British cartoonists. His pseudonym was taken from one of his idols, the actor Larry Parks, who was the star of the film 'The Al Jolson Story' (1946).
Larry produced a series of cartoons based on famous paintings at the Walker and Lady Lever Art Galleries. Here, he has taken F W Yeames's 'And When Did You Last See Your Father?' (WAG 2679), turning it into a scene in which Russian Soviet military officers interrogate a Nazi soldier who (wearing a swastika arm band) and subsituting 'Fuhrer' for 'Father' in the label on the frame.
Yeames's painting of a young Royalist boy being interrogated by Parliamentarians during the English Civil War has been reincarnated in many guises, including political cartoons in newspapers and satirical magazines, photographs, posters, stage plays, cigarette cards and even a waxwork tableau at Madame Tussaud's in London. Larry's cartoon continues this history of reinterpretation and reworking.