London Underground Caricatures

During lockdown in 2020 I decided to draw a caricature of a celebrity associated, however loosely, to every single London Underground station. Whether they were born nearby, lived there for a while, worked there or went to some educational establishment, all were good qualifications for inclusion in this august tome.

Emma Bunton

I started with Spice Girl Emma Bunton at High Barnet station (she was born and went to school there) and ended with Billy Bragg in Barking. But this doesn’t mean that the majority of the project is made up of musicians, as you can see, on the left, with UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who used to live in Islington, close to Angel station.

Cartoonist Gerald Scarfe

London, being the major historical city that it is, offers an enormous amount of scope for caricaturists looking for inspiration. So Aldgate becomes the station associated with eighteenth century prize fighter Daniel Mendoza, Earls Court was where writer Mervyn Peake lived for a while and East Ham was where cartoonist Gerald Scarfe was born. Various other luminaries such as poet John Betjeman, writer Charles Dickens, comedian Spike Milligan and singer Amy Winehouse could have had several stations to which they were connected and, indeed, there have been social media arguments over the relevance of some of my choices!

ITV London News

I was lucky enough to have the project covered on ITV London News presented by Duncan Golestani (see video below)but I have no idea if this will lead to eventual publication or, perhaps, an exhibition at the London Transport Museum.