Saturday, January 11, 2014

My hero / Sir John Tenniel by Chris Riddell



John Tenniel
1889




My hero: Sir John Tenniel by Chris Riddell


John Tenniel's white rabbit – the shading, the intricate lines of cross-hatching, the folds of the sleeve – was one of the reasons I became an illustrator

 Sat 11 Jan 2014


B
efore I knew a thing about him, John Tenniel was a hero of mine, or rather, I should say, his white rabbit was. As a child I copied Tenniel's illustrations from Alice's Adventures in Wonderlandobsessively, particularly his drawing of the white rabbit in waistcoat and frockcoat, umbrella tucked under one arm and a fob watch in paw, a look of suppressed panic in his eye. I loved analysing the shading, intricate lines of cross-hatching, the folds of the sleeve, the tilt of the head, that wide-eyed rabbit stare. Tenniel was one of the reasons I became an illustrator.



Later, I began to notice old Punch cartoons with that familiar cross-hatch style, and a particular look to the figures. The British lion, Britannia, a forlorn Bismarck getting off a ship – they could all have stepped out of the pages of Wonderland. Then I saw in the corner an elegant monogram: "JT".
Born in 1820, Tenniel began his career as a painter – one of his murals, Saint Cecilia, adorns the House of Lords. But in 1850 he joined Punch as the magazine's principal political cartoonist, a post he held for 50 years. It was this work that caught Charles Dodgson's eye and led him to approach Tenniel to illustrate his book Alice's Adventures Under Ground. Published subsequently by Macmillan as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with 34 exquisitely engraved line drawings, the book became a classic that eventually eclipsed Tenniel's work as a cartoonist.


In his self-portrait, with macassared hair and great drooping moustache, Tenniel looks every inch the grand Victorian gentleman – a cross between Bismarck and the White Knight from Through the Looking-Glass. But appearances can be deceptive. As the political cartoonist of the Observer for almost 20 years, I am drawn to a quote Tenniel gave about looking at his weekly Punch cartoon. "I always leave it to my sister, who opens it and hands it across to me, when I just take a glance at it, and receive my weekly pang."
THE GUARDIAN



2009
001 My hero / Oscar Wilde by Michael Holroyd
002 My hero / Harley Granville-Barker by Richard Eyre
003 My hero / Edward Goldsmith by Zac Goldsmith
004 My hero / Fridtjof Nansen by Sara Wheeler 
005 My hero / Mother Mercedes Lawler IBVM by Antonia Fraser
007 My hero / Ernest Shepard by Richard Holmes
008 My hero / JG Ballard by Will Self
009 My hero / Alan Ross by William Boyd
010 My hero / Ben the labrador by John Banville
011 My hero / Vicent van Gogh by Margaret Drabble
012 My hero / Franz Marek by Eric Hobsbawm

2010

017 My hero / Jack Yeats by Colm Tóibín
018 My hero / Francisco Goya by Diana Athill
019 My hero / Max Stafford-Clark by Sebastian Barry
020 My hero / Arthur Holmes by Richard Fortey

036 My hero / Robert Lowell by Jonathan Raban
037 My hero / Beryl Bainbridge by Michael Holroyd
038 My hero / Charles Schulz by Jenny Colgan
039 My hero / Oliver Knussen by Adam Foulds
040 My hero / Annie Proulx by Alan Warner

041 My hero / David Lynch by Paul Murray
042 My hero / Edwin Morgan by Robert Crawford
043 My hero / Anne Lister by Emma Donoghue
044 My hero / Jane Helen Harrinson by Mary Beard
045 My hero / Edmund Burke by David Marquand
046 My hero / Shelagh Deleaney by Jeanette Winterson
047 My hero / Christopher Marlowe by Val McDermid
048 My hero / Gwen John by Anne Enright
049 My hero / Michael Mayne by Susan Hill
050 My hero / Stanley Spencer by Howard Jacobson

051 My hero / William Beveridge by Will Hutton
052 My hero / Jean McConville by Amanda Foreman
053 My hero / Alexander Pushkin by Elaine Feinstein
058 My hero / Cy Twombly by Edmund de Waal

2011
079 My hero / Gene Wolfe by Neil Gaiman
087 My hero / Alberto Moravia by John Burnside
096 My hero / Isaac Babel by AD Miller
097 Lucian Freud by Esi Edugyan
100 Thomas Tranströmer by Robin Robertson
102 My hero / David Hockney by Susan Hill

2012

190 My hero / Iris Murdoch by Charlotte Mendelson
194 My hero / René Descartes by James Kelman
199 My hero / Albert Camus by Geoff Dyer

2015
2016




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