George Morrow (illustrator)

George Morrow (5 September 1869 – 18 January 1955) was a cartoonist and book illustrator.[1] He was the son of a painter and decorator from Clifton Street in west Belfast. George was one of 8 children, with four of his siblings, Albert, Jack, Edwin and Norman also working as illustrators and cartoonists.

George Morrow
Self portrait (1920)
Born5 September 1869
Belfast, Ireland
Died18 January 1955 (aged 85)
Thaxted, Essex, England
NationalityIrish
Known forCartooning, illustration

Life & Works

Morrow was educated at the Belfast Model School and the Government School of Art. He was apprenticed as a signwriter and he later studied in Paris. Morrow contributed one work to an exhibition with the Belfast Rambler's Sketching Club in 1888 and four paintings to the Belfast Art Society exhibition in 1893.[2] In the mid to late 1890s he lived at 324 King's Road in Chelsea,[2] where he made the acquaintance of Mark Twain. In 1896 he contributed illustrations to Pick-Me-Up and Mary Russell Mitford's Country Stories.[3]

In 1905 he contributed to the Ulster Literary Theatre's Ulad magazine and in the following year was published in the first edition of the Shanachie. In 1906 he sat on the committee of the first Oireachtas Art Exhibition with Jack Butler Yeats and Sarah Purser,[3] and in the following year he showed two works at the Oireachtas exhibition of 1907.[2] In 1906 he was also published in Bulmer Hobson's separatist magazine The Republic, and more importantly Morrow began his long association with Punch. In 50 years Morrow was to contribute 2,704 cartoons to the publication, of which 22 were full-page political cartoons.[3] He joined the staff of the magazine in 1924 and was appointed art editor in 1930, a position he held until 1937. For many years, Morrow produced "Royal Academy Depressions", a series of comic parodies of Royal Academy pictures. Other publications he contributed to included the Bystander, The Pall Mall Magazine, Sphere, Strand Magazine, Tatler and Windsor Magazine.[4]

Morrow was represented at the inaugural exhibition of the Society of Humourous Art in 1912, alongside W Heath Robinson. His work was later displayed at the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery in 1945 as part of an exhibition of 100 Punch drawings.[4] Several collections of his cartoons were published including An Alphabet of the War (1915) which reprinted cartoons from Punch Almanack. George Morrow: His Book (1920), More Morrow (1921) and Some More (1928) followed. He also illustrated more than 70 books by other authors for adults and children,[3] and created the satirical pictorial novel What a Life! with E V Lucas, who was the editor of Punch from 1932-1949.[4]

Death & Legacy

He lived most of his adult life in England, although he spent many summers painting watercolours in Ireland, particularly in County Donegal. Married with no children, Morrow died at his home in Thaxted, Essex on 18 January 1955, aged 85, one month after his last cartoon appeared in Punch. His work is to be found in the collections of the Ulster Museum, Linen Hall Library, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Manchester City Art Gallery and the British Museum.[4]

Partial bibliography

References
  1. Snoddy, Theo (2002). Dictionary of Irish Artists: 20th Century (2nd ed.). Dublin: Merlin. p. 438. ISBN 1-903582-17-2.
  2. Stewart, Ann M (1997). Irish art societies and sketching clubs : index of exhibitors, 1870-1980, M-Z. 2. Dublin: Four Courts Press. p. 519. ISBN 1-85182-328X.
  3. Snoddy, 2002, p.438
  4. Snoddy, 2002, p.439
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