Time Magazine ‘Nixon vs. the Watergate Investigators’ c. 1970s

Jack Davis made this Time Magazine illustration of ‘Nixon vs. the Watergate Investigators’ with pen, ink and watercolor. Look at this free-for-all! What strikes me is the energy. Davis’s style feels like controlled chaos. The caricatures are so good. He uses a relatively limited palette of browns, creams and reds, which adds to the overall effect of a bar fight. He also creates a sense of depth through layering and overlapping figures. I can imagine Davis, hunched over his drawing table, carefully inking each line, deciding how much to exaggerate each feature. The textures in the cowboy accessories and broken mirror are amazing. I think he's saying that politicians are just like cowboys. They may seem tough on the outside, but they're really just insecure and looking for a fight. Like a lot of comic artists of the day, Davis's work has that great balance of observation and expression.