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Linley Sambourne's artistic career stretched from 1867 to 1909. He had a life-long passion for
drawing, developing many styles but excelling at the grotesque and fanciful caricature of
people and animals. A number of critics regard his early cartoon work at Punch magazine as
his best. His conversion to realism and subsequent use of photography, central to his
creative process, is regarded by some people as a mistake.
In 1867, Mark Lemon, editor of the popular satirical magazine Punch was
shown a sketch of Sambourne's and was impressed enough to employ him for freelance
work. When Sambourne was 25, he was offered a permanent job with Punch, making him an
exceptionally young recruit. He continued to work for the magazine for the next 43 years,
until his death in 1910. (See Sambourne as Cartoonist.
The 1880s were Sambourne's busiest years. In
addition to working on the weekly cartoon at Punch, he began to
experiment with photography and worked as an illustrator on a new
edition of The Water Babies for the publisher Macmillan.
(See Sambourne as Illustrator).
Sambourne's interest in photography
developed rapidly, first as an aid to his work as a cartoonist using
his family and servants as models, and later as a hobby and passion.
In 1893, Sambourne joined the Camera Club. It provided artists with
a number of nude models to photograph. Sambourne took hundreds of
photographs, many of which were later used as the basis for
cartoons. (See Sambourne as
Photographer).
Approximately 1,000 cartoons, drawings and sketches and nearly 15,000 photographs,
cyanotypes and glass plate negatives survive today as part of the Linley Sambourne
collection, many of which are hung on the walls at Stafford Terrace.
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