| John
Tenniel |
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| Nationality - English |
Profession - Illustrator |
| Date of birth - 28 Feb 1820
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Date of death - 1914 |
| Place of birth
- London : |
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John Tenniel was born in London on 28 February 1820. His early friendship with the artist Charles Keene developed a talent for scholarly caricature.
In 1850 he was invited by Mark Lemon to take the position as joint cartoonist (with John Leech) on Punch, in succession to Richard Doyle. When Leech died, Tenniel continued to work alone on the main weekly political cartoon.
Before retiring in 1901 at the age of 81, Tenniel contributed around 2,300 cartoons to Punch, innumerable smaller drawings, double-page cartoons for Punch's Alrnanac and other special numbers, and 250 designs for Punch's Pocket-books.
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Tenniel's parallel career as a book illustrator began in 1846 with Undine and Juvenile Verse and Picture Book, followed by Aesop's Fables (1848) and Moore's Lalla Rookh (1861). He also contributed to the DaIziels' edition of the Arabian Nights (1863-5).
His association with 'Lewis Carroll' (Charles Dodgson) on Alice was always a difficult one, but open quarrels were generally avoided. He agreed to accept most of Carroll's demands and foibles, and was even persuaded (against his usual practice) to draw Alice from a model - not the real Alice Liddell, but another little girl of similar appearance. Tenniel's Alice has often been described as a 'wax puppet' or miniature adult, rather than a child, but she still remains the universally accepted visual image, in spite of countless subsequent artists' interpretations in the following years.
It was Tenniel who was largely responsible for the suppression of the first edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (dated 1865), being even more dissatisfied than Carroll with the printing of the pictures. This edition has become one of the most celebrated rarities in the antiquarian book world. The accepted edition (dated 1866) was published by Macmillan in November 1865 in time for the Christmas market.
In spite of their stormy relationship, Tenniel was the only artist Carroll wanted to illustrate the sequel volume, Through the Looking Glass (dated 1872). Tenniel was equally inspired in this book with his pictorial creation of Humpty Dumpty, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and all Carroll's other much loved characters. He incorporated several political picture-jokes, such as turning Gladstone and Disraeli into the Lion and the Unicorn. (Tenniel himself was very like the White Knight in appearance.)
After 1872 Tenniel understandably refused to work with Carroll on his later books, tactfully explaining 'the faculty of making drawings for book illustration has departed from me'. In private he warned Harry Furniss (who illustrated the two Sylvie and Bruno books): 'Dodgson is impossible! You will never put up with that conceited old Don for more than a week!' (The other two notable illustrators of Carroll's humorous children's books were Henry Holiday (The Hunting of the Snark) and Arthur B. Frost (Phantasmagoria), who also collaborated on Rhyme? and Reason?)
Tenniel survived long enough to see Alice's Adventures in Wonderland go out of copyright in 1907 and the consequent plethora of other illustrated editions (by Charles Robinson, Arthur Rackham, Millicent Sowerby, Thomas Maybank, Mabel Lucie Attwell, and others).
John Tenniel died on 25 February 1914, shortly before his ninety-fourth birthday.
Taken from 'The Golden Age of Children's Book Illustration by Richard Dalby |
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John Tenniel
bibliography - 8
listed |
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