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Norman Thelwell

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Norman Thelwell
Born(1923-05-23)23 May 1923
Birkenhead, England
Died7 February 2004(2004-02-07) (aged 80)
NationalityEnglish
Other namesThelwell
Occupation(s)Cartoonist, comic artist
Notable workPenelope and Kipper

Norman Thelwell (3 May 1923 – 7 February 2004) was an English cartoonist well known for his humorous illustrations of ponies and horses. He was also active as a comic artist, drawing the series Penelope and Kipper. [1]

Life and career

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Born in Birkenhead, Thelwell spent the Second World War in the East Yorkshire Regiment,[2] having signed up at the age of 18 in 1941,[3] and was art editor of an army magazine in New Delhi, India.[2]

His first published cartoon, in the London Opinion, was an Indian subject.[3]

In 1944, he took evening classes in art at Nottingham Art School.[3] A fellow art student, Rhona, became his wife in 1949.[3] They had one son and one daughter.[2][3]

After Nottingham, he took a degree at Liverpool College of Art,[3] then in 1950, he took up a post teaching design and illustration at Wolverhampton College of Art,[2] but gave this up to work freelance in 1956.[2][3]

He became a contributor to the satirical magazine Punch, who first published his work in 1952,[3] beginning a 25-year relationship that resulted in more than 1,500 cartoons, of which 60 were used as front covers.[3] He also worked as political cartoonist for the News Chronicle from 1956 until the paper closed in 1960.[4]

His first collection of cartoons, Angels on Horseback, was published in 1957.[3]

Known to many only as "Thelwell", he found his true comic niche with Pony Club girls and their comic ponies, a subject for which he became best-known, and which led to a cartoon strip about such a pair, Penelope and Kipper. He also illustrated Chicko in the British boys' comic Eagle.

For the last quarter of a century of his life he lived in the Test Valley at Timsbury, near Romsey, gradually restoring a farm house and landscaping the grounds which gave rise in 1978 to his first factual book, A Plank Bridge by a Pool,[5] which detailed the first two lakes he dug there. A third lake was later featured on the BBC's South Today programme. Written much earlier, but published three years later, A Millstone Round My Neck described his experiences in re-building a Cornish water mill (Addicroft Mill at Liskeard, which he called Penruin), which was sold before the book was published. He always loved old buildings, and in his autobiography, Wrestling with a Pencil, wrote about his joy in the beauty of old cottages.

In the 1970s, Thelwell also illustrated the front covers of the first six James Herriot books in the series.

Exhibitions

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An exhibition of Thelwell's drawings and cartoons was scheduled to be held at the Nature in Art gallery in Gloucester, England, from 30 July to 1 September 2019.[6]

Published books

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  • Angels on Horseback (1957)
  • Thelwell Country (1959)
  • A Place of Your Own – A Guide for House-Hunters (1960)
  • Thelwell in Orbit (1961)
  • A Leg at Each Corner (1962)
  • Top Dog (1964) [Dogs]
  • Thelwell's Riding Academy (1965)
  • Drawing Ponies (1966)
  • Up the Garden Path (1967) [gardening]
  • Thelwell's Compleat Tangler (1967) [fishing]
  • Thelwell's Book of Leisure (1968)
  • This Desirable Plot (1970) [real estate]
  • The Effluent Society (1971) [waste and ecology]
  • Penelope (1972)
  • Three Sheets in the Wind (1973) [sailing]
  • Belt Up (1974) [motoring]
  • Thelwell Goes West (1975)
  • Brat Race (1977)
  • Riding Frieze (1977)
  • A Plank Bridge by a Pool (1978)
  • Thelwell's Gymkhana (1979)
  • Horse Sense (1980; previously published as Riding Frieze, 1977)
  • A Millstone Round My Neck (1981)
  • Pony Calvalcade (1981) (3 in 1: Angels on Horseback, A Leg at Each Corner, Riding Academy)
  • Some Damn Fool's Signed the Rubens Again (1982) [owning a stately home]
  • Sporting Prints (1982)
  • How to Draw Ponies (1982; based on Drawing Ponies, 1966)
  • Magnificat (1983) [cats]
  • Wrestling with a Pencil: The Life of a Freelance Artist (1986)
  • Play It As It Lies (1987) [golfing]
  • Pony Panorama (1988) (3 in 1: Gymkhana, Goes West, Penelope)
  • Penelope Rides Again (1989)
  • The Cat's Pyjamas (1992) [cats]

Other published works/or works involved with

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  • The Penguin Thelwell (1963)
  • The Delinquent Equine RS Summerhayes and Thelwell (Moss Bros) (undated)
  • Thelwell ISBN 1-871136-07-5 (1989) [sale catalogue]
  • Ploughmans Punch (1995)
  • The Definitive Thelwell ISBN 978-1-905738-14-4 (2009) [sale catalogue]
  • Thelwell Country: 70 years of Norman Thelwell ISBN 0-901723-33-9 (2003–4) [exhibition catalogue, Southampton City Art Gallery]

Forewords written by/contains some illustrations

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  • Punch Afloat (1974) – contains two sections written by Thelwell, pp. 36 and 80, as well as additional illustrations
  • Travelling with a Sketchbook by Ray Evans, foreword by Norman Thelwell (1980)

References

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  1. ^ "Norman Thelwell". lambiek.net. Retrieved 7 April 2018.
  2. ^ a b c d e Thelwell (1960). A Place of Your Own. Methuen.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Thelwell's". Estate of Norman Thelwell. Archived from the original on 4 December 2011. Retrieved 18 December 2011.
  4. ^ Norman Thelwell Biography, The British Cartoon Archive.
  5. ^ "Norman Thelwell" (obituary), The Daily Telegraph, 9 February 2004.
  6. ^ "Special Exhibitions" (PDF). Natue in Art. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
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