Martin Rowson: Hogarth’s Roundabout, 1997

Martin Rowson is a political cartoonist, writer and broadcaster. His work is published in most daily newspapers in the UK.

He has produced comic-book adaptations of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, as well as writing his own books. His 2006 memoir Stuff, about clearing out his late parents’ house and his own adoption, was nominated for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction.

This image was commissioned by the BBC at the time of the tercentenary of Hogarth’s birth but never used. Martin then had to buy it back from the BBC for his full fee. He now always reads the small print of his contracts. The mural team felt that this picture perfectly unites the joys of commuting through Chiswick, along with an hommage to William Hogarth, whose house is about 50 yards from this roundabout, which is familiar to most Londoners and visitors.

Acknowledgement: (c) Martin Rowson