Ralph Steadman

Ralph Idris Steadman (born 15 May 1936) is a Welsh illustrator and writer whose splattered, savage pen-and-ink work became inseparable from the gonzo journalism of Hunter S. Thompson. His drawings for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971) and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 defined the visual register of late-twentieth-century American political reportage.

Born in Wallasey, Cheshire, and raised in Abergele, North Wales, Steadman trained at East Ham Technical College and the London College of Printing while working as a cartoonist for Punch, Private Eye, and the Daily Telegraph. He met Thompson in 1970 on assignment for Scanlan's Monthly at the Kentucky Derby, a collaboration recounted in the essay "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved."

Beyond Thompson, he illustrated editions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Treasure Island, Animal Farm, and Fahrenheit 451, and produced a long series of portraits of writers, jazz musicians, and extinct birds. His Gonzo: The Art (1998) and The Joke's Over: Memories of Hunter S. Thompson (2006) documented the partnership from his side of the table.

He has been the subject of the documentary For No Good Reason (2012) and was awarded the Francis Williams Memorial Prize and the Black Humour Award by the Pompidou Centre. He continues to draw and paint at his studio in Kent.

The name Ralph derives from Old Norse Ráðúlfr, fusing ráð (counsel) and úlfr (wolf). His counsel has come at the bite end of the brush, and his wolf has been the willingness to draw the powerful as they actually look rather than as they would prefer to be remembered.