"Certainly, the private life of James Gillray was disastrous; yet so clear-sighted was he, so ruthless in his regard for truth as he saw it (even in himself), that his drawings have a bitter verity almost unknown elsewhere in British art: a cruel rigour that makes him seem, in spirit, closer to the satirists of the Continent, where his art was, in fact, much admired. However remote the politics of Gillray's day may seem, to look at his caricatures is to be caught up, almost in spit of oneself, in the frenzies of this patriotic radical."
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'The English Comic Draughtsmen', The Times (4 December 1956), p. 3
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Gillray
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James Gillray
James Gillray (13 August 1756 – June 1815) was a British caricaturist and printmaker famous for his etched political and social satires, mainly published between 1792 and 1810. Many of his works are held at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
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