School of Art

School of Art Collections

Home

Contact Details

School of Art
Aberystwyth University
Buarth Mawr
Aberystwyth
Ceredigion
SY23 1NG

Tel: +44 (0)1970 622460

Fax: +44 (0)1970 622461

Email: artschool@aber.ac.uk

Display artist/maker:

Edward Linley Sambourne

Born: 1844, UK, England, London Died: 1910, UK, England, London, Kensington

Illustrator and cartoonist. Sambourne was educated at City of London School, 1855-56, and trained at Chester Training College, 1857-60. Before becoming an apprentice at John Penn & Son engineering company, Greenwich, he also briefly trained at the School of Art, South Kensington. His work was first published in ‘Punch’ magazine in 1867 and he began contributing regularly from that time onwards. In 1878, he was appointed ‘cartoon junior’, second in line to John Tenniel (1820-1914) the chief cartoonist; he eventually took the lead position in 1900 when Tenniel retired. At the start of his career, he preferred the grotesque but chose a more realistic style later on. He used photographs to assist his figure drawing and took up photography himself in 1882. Sambourne illustrated books as well, e. g. the 1885 edition of Charles Kingsley’s ‘Water Babies’. In addition, he regularly showed his work at the Royal Academy of Arts from 1885 onwards, had a one-man show at the Fine Art Society in 1893 and was the one of the royal commissioners of fine arts at the Paris Exhibition of 1900; he was the only juror for Great Britain in class 7. His house at 18 Stamford Terrace, Kensington, is decorated and furnished in the aesthetic style and first opened as a museum in 1980.