Illustrator Stanley Chow on his ubiquitous image of Andy Burnham

Stanley Chow drew Andy Burnham after the mayor’s rousing speech outside Manchester Central Library in October 2020, prompted by his wife’s suggestion. He made the image in Adobe Illustrator and posted it on Twitter; “I put it on Twitter and within 10 mins, Andy had nicked it,” he recalls.

Chow, 51, grew up in Altrincham and then Stockport. He trained at Manchester Metropolitan, moved to Swindon, and returned to Manchester at 21, working in his parents’ chip shop while trying to get work. His style sits between caricature and portraiture: he reduces a face to shapes yet keeps it recognisably itself, producing an image he describes as “funny with just a little anger in there.” His illustrations have appeared in the New Yorker and Time, and he is working on an exhibition for Manchester’s Arndale shopping centre.

The drawing became a visual proxy for Burnham’s campaigns, appearing as a Twitter avatar and on billboards, beer mats, mugs, aprons and record inlays.

United Kingdom, Manchester

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