Art cartoon: The smokers' huddle

The smokers' huddle is very much a modern British cartoon cliche, much used particularly since the smoking ban came into effect. I've done a few myself, see here, and here.

And as I like to do cartoons about art, see here, here, and, indeed, here, it seemed like a fun idea to put the two together.

This is another one of those gags that I sold to The Spectator but which ended up being transported to The Spectator Australia. I guess they must have smokers' huddles there too. Bit warmer for them, at least.

The paintings are, left to right, Van Gogh's Self Portrait with Pipe, Cezanne's The Pipe Smoker, Magritte's The Treachery of Images (aka "Ceci n'est pas une pipe") and an early Van Gogh (again) called Skull with Burning Cigarette. I had a postcard of the latter on my wall when I was a student. As if that is of any interest to anyone.

Royston's portfolio website