Arts: Classic Cartoons

Martin Plimmer Praises Larry's `Man In Apron'

IN 1957, when this cartoon appeared in Punch, Larry's Man in Apron ventured where no man had gone before in a daisy-patterned apron. He was a pioneer, scratching his head with the cheese grater and doing battle with hostile ironing boards. But he was never less than a man, even when being snogged by the milkman: he approached housework with a mixture of masculine and ingenuity.

Larry (real name Terence Parkes) had been starred to become a distinguished illustrator, but he larked about too much at art college and made us all laugh instead. His sense of absurdity is spot on and though his style eschews most outward niceties, he can delineate a world of complex internal upheavals in the single line of a mouth. Now he is 70, and his original drawings fetch pounds 400 at Chris Beetles' Mayfair gallery (0171 839 7429), where an exhibition, `Larry - Drawn at the World Cup', opens on 23 June.