On the Beach

Kenneth Bird ‘Fougasse’ was a leading and influential British cartoonist and illustrator of the mid-20th century. He was art editor and later editor at Punch and wrote an influential study of 20th century cartooning, The Good-Tempered Pencil. He is most famous for the posters designed for government departments including the influential ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’ series which the V&A acquired with an Art Fund grant in 2006. This work was produced for the 1954 Summer edition of Punch. The cartoons shows how the British have dealt with the problem of changing into bathing suits through the ages.