PC_FredMay01

PC_FredMay01

Unused postcard with cartoon caricature by Fred May (PC_FredMay01)

Fred May (1891-1976) was a caricaturist and artist, born in Wallasey, Cheshire. He attended the local Liscard School of Art and Reading University.  May's earliest drawings were produced for the Liverpool Daily Post and North Eastern Daily Gazette. His first cartoons for the Tatler were sent home in 1917 from the trenches where he was serving as an infantry officer with the Green Howards. He was asked to provide caricatures of men on the Western Front between the shelling. He developed an acute, gentle and humorous style from the 1920s onwards, caricaturing personalities including Winston Churchill, who autographed his own likeness. May served again during the Second World War, when he was honoured with the Legion d'Honneur, and after the war he continued to work for the Tatler, but also the Graphic and Weekly Sketch and News Chronicle right up until his death in 1976.  He was a nephew of the cartoonist Phil May.