Osbert Lancaster

Lancaster (right) with Frederic Lloyd in 1971 at the launch of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company revival of The Sorcerer designed by Lancaster.

Sir Osbert Lancaster, CBE (4 August 1908 – 27 July 1986) was an English cartoonist, author, art critic and stage designer, best known to the public at large for his cartoons published in the Daily Express.

Biography

Lancaster was born in London, England. He was educated at St Ronan's School and then at Charterhouse and Lincoln College, Oxford, where he became friends with John Betjeman, drew cartoons for the University magazine Cherwell, and developed his trademark upper-class persona. He graduated with a fourth-class degree in English after an extra year beyond the normal three years of study. Intending a career in law, he failed his bar exams and instead entered the Slade School of Art in London.

'The Opening of Historical Buildings', a drawing by Lancaster featuring Maudie and William Littlehampton.

He initially worked with Betjeman at the Architectural Review. In 1936, he published Progress at Pelvis Bay, the first of his many books of social and architectural satire. In 1939 he became cartoonist at the Daily Express, where he pioneered the Pocket Cartoon, a topical single-panel single-column drawing appearing on the front page, since imitated in several British newspapers. In these he sympathetically mocked the British upper classes, personified by his characters William (8th Earl of Littlehampton, formerly Viscount Draynflete) and his wife Maudie. During his Express career he drew some 10,000 cartoons over a period of 40 years.

During World War II, he worked for the press censorship bureau, then in Greece as a Foreign Office press attaché. During the war years, his cartoons provided comic relief from the privations of rationing and bombing raids. After the war he published Classical Landscape with Figures (1947), The Saracen's Head (1948) and Drayneflete Revealed (1949), the last dealing with the Littlehamptons' architectural and artistic inheritances. Along with The Littlehampton Bequest (1973, foreword by Sir Roy Strong), it provided a humorous and satirical, but very well-informed, survey of architectural and aesthetic trends in British and European history.

In 1951, he worked with John Piper on designs for the Festival of Britain, followed by stage design work for opera, ballet and theatre including productions at Sadler's Wells and Glyndebourne, among them Frederick Ashton's production of La Fille mal gardée.

Lancaster himself was firmly from the British upper middle classes—as his autobiographies All Done From Memory (1963) and With an Eye to the Future (1967), and all his books illustrated by himself, make clear. In later life, it was observed that he affected a caricatured persona similar to those depicted in his drawings. His attitude to the British aristocracy might be seen to be tinged with envy. When he was knighted in 1975 he became one of only a small number of cartoonists to have received the honour, John Tenniel and David Low being others.

He was the illustrator of many other books including Noblesse Oblige (London, Hamish Hamilton, 1973, edited by Nancy Mitford, and some editions of C. Northcote Parkinson's books, including Parkinson's Law,^[1] its sequel The Law and the Profits,^[2] In-laws & Outlaws ^[3], and Law of Delay.^[4]

He was married twice: to Karen Elizabeth Harris (the daughter of Sir Austen Harris), with whom he had a son, William and a daughter; Harris died in 1964. In 1967, he married the journalist Anne Scott-James, to whom he remained married until he died.^[5]

Apart from his knighthood, his honours include a CBE in 1953, an honorary DLitt from Oxford, as well as honorary degrees from Birmingham (1964), Newcastle upon Tyne (1970), and St Andrews (1974).

He died of natural causes, aged 77, in Chelsea. He was fondly summarised in his Times obituary: "The most polite and unsplenetic of cartoonists, he was never a crusader, remaining always a witty, civilized critic with a profound understanding of the vagaries of human nature."^[6] He is buried at West Winch, Norfolk.

Exhibits

His drawings and cartoons were the subject of an exhibition marking the centenary of his birth, entitled 'Cartoons and Coronets: The Genius of Osbert Lancaster,' at The Wallace Collection from October 2008 to January 2009. Curated by James Knox and supported by the John R. Murray Charitable Trust of John Murray (publisher), it coincided with the publication of a new biography about Lancaster, Cartoons and Coronets: The Genius of Osbert Lancaster.^[7][8]

Selected publications

• Drayneflete Revealed (1949) — a humorous history of British architecture, tracing the development of 'Draynflete' over the centuries.
• Here of All Places
• Façades and Faces (London, John Murray, 1950)
• Sailing to Byzantium: an architectural companion (London, John Murray, 1969)
• All Done from Memory (1963) and With an Eye to the Future (1973), autobiography.
• Cartoons and Coronets: The Genius of Osbert Lancaster (London, Frances Lincoln Publishers, 2008)

References

1. ^ Book review, New York Times, April 27, 1958, p.BR8.
2. ^ Diminishing Returns, News, The Times, Thursday, May 12, 1960; pg. 17; Issue 54769
3. ^ Antiquarian book store listing, with cover image. Accessed 2008-04-23.
4. ^ Book review, New York Times, March 14, 1971.
5. ^ Lancaster, Sir Osbert in Who's Who 1986 (London, A. & C. Black, 1986).
6. ^ Obituary of Sir Osbert Lancaster, The Times, London, July 29, 1986.
7. ^ The illustrations of Osbert Lancaster, Design Week, 14 August 2008.
8. ^ Cartoons and Coronets: The Genius of Osbert Lancaster (Frances Lincoln Publishers, 2008).

Bibliography

• Bevis Hillier, Lancaster, Sir Osbert (1908–1986), rev., Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. Accessed 17 July 2007.

External links

• Osbert Lancaster, British Cartoon Archive, University of Kent
• Biography, American Ballet Theatre
• Cartoons and Coronets: The Genius of Osbert Lancaster, The Wallace Collection exhibition
• Osbert Lancaster: The original style guru
• 'An original line' by D J Taylor Book review in The Guardian 2008-10-11
• Osbert Lancaster: Savage grace
• The Importance of Being Osbert

Persondata
Name	Lancaster, Osbert
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	4 August 1908
Place of birth
Date of death	27 July 1986
Place of death