Osbert Lancaster
Several of the terms he coined as labels for architectural styles have gained common usage, including "Pont Street Dutch" and "Stockbroker's Tudor", and his books have continued to be regarded as important works of reference on the subject.
He developed a cast of regular characters, led by his best-known creation, Maudie Littlehampton, through whom he expressed his views on the fashions, fads and political events of the day.
His diverse career, honoured by a knighthood in 1975, was celebrated by an exhibition at the Wallace Collection marking the centenary of his birth and titled Cartoons and Coronets: The Genius of Osbert Lancaster.
[1] His paternal grandfather, Sir William Lancaster, rose from modest beginnings to become the chief executive of the Prudential Assurance Company, Lord of the manor of East Winch, Norfolk, and a philanthropist in the field of education.
[2] Osbert's mother was an artist, known for her paintings of flowers, who had exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy;[3] his father was a publisher,[4] who volunteered for the army on the outbreak of the First World War, was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Norfolk Regiment, and was killed at the Battle of Arras in April 1917.
[4][6] Such was the mixed nature of London in the early years of the 20th century that a short distance away were the deprived and dangerous Notting Dale and the Portobello Road, where, as Lancaster recalled in his 1953 memoirs, it was said to be impossible for a well-dressed man to walk and emerge intact.
[14] Lancaster's biographer Richard Boston writes, "The hearty Baden-Powell, for example, was offset by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Robert Graves, while talented Carthusian artists had included Thackeray, Leech, Lovat Fraser and Max Beerbohm".
("Purple") Johnson, encouraged Lancaster, insisting that a sound technique was a prerequisite for effective self-expression in drawing or painting; in that respect the boy's time at the school was valuable, though otherwise the headmaster found him "irretrievably gauche ... a sad disappointment".
[19] He cultivated the image of an Edwardian dandy, with large moustache, a monocle and check suits, modelling his persona to a considerable degree on Beerbohm, whom he admired greatly.
[23] He contributed prose and drawings to Isis and Cherwell magazines, engaged in student pranks,[n 3] staged an exhibition of his pictures,[n 4] attended life classes, and became established as a major figure in the Oxonian social scene.
Reviewing the book in The Observer, Simon Harcourt-Smith wrote, "Mr Lancaster spares us no horrifying detail of the borough's development ... [his] admirable drawings complete the picture of progress and desolation.
"[40] Lancaster followed this with Pillar to Post (1938), a lighthearted book with roughly equal amounts of text and drawings, aiming to demystify architecture for the intelligent lay person.
[41] The architectural scholar Christopher Hussey remarked on the author's inventive coinage of terms for period styles such as "Banker's Georgian", "Stockbroker's Tudor" and "By-pass Variegated", and described the book as both perceptive and shrewd.
[n 7] The early cartoons accompanied the "William Hickey" gossip column; later they were promoted to a front-page slot, where they remained a regular feature, with only brief interruptions, for more than forty years, totalling about 10,000.
[60] Following an initiative by Macmillan and the personal intervention of Winston Churchill, a new government took office in Athens acceptable to all sides, and peace was briefly restored, in January 1945.
Boston describes it as "an unflinching but lyrical account of the conditions of post-war Greece"; The Times called it "a fine work of scholarship" as well as "an outstanding picture book".
[67] In 1947–48 he was the Sydney Jones Lecturer in Art at Liverpool University, following earlier appointees including Sir Herbert Read, W. G. Constable, Frank Lambert and H. S.
Boston describes it as "a 250-yard succession of pavilions, arcades, towers, pagodas, terraces, gardens, lakes and fountains, in styles that included Brighton Regency, Gothic and Chinese".
[79] He worked at home in the mornings, on illustrations, stage designs, book reviews and any other commissions, before joining his wife for a midday dry martini and finally dressing and going to one of his clubs for lunch.
From these sketches he produced Classical Landscape with Figures (1947), Sailing to Byzantium: An Architectural Companion (1969) and, in a different vein, Scene Changes (1978), in which he ventured into writing poetry to accompany his drawings.
[102] He wrote, "It is not the cartoonist's business to wave flags and cheer as the procession passes; his allotted role is that of the little boy who points out that the Emperor is stark naked".
[105] Her comments on the fads and peculiarities of the day caught the public imagination;[104] the art historian Bevis Hillier calls her "an iconic figure to rank with Low's Colonel Blimp and Giles's Grandma".
[110] Other regular characters included Maudie's dim but occasionally perceptive husband Willy; two formidable dowagers: the Littlehamptons' Great-Aunt Edna, and Mrs Frogmarch, a middle-class Tory activist;[n 16] Canon Fontwater, a personification of the Church Militant; Mrs Rajagojollibarmi, an Asian politician; and Father O'Bubblegum, Fontwater's Roman Catholic opposite number; they are seen in the illustration to the right, from the 1975 collection Liquid Assets.
[120] He rarely let his own views show obviously in his cartoons, but his hatred of political oppression was reflected in his portrayal of fascist, communist and apartheid regimes, and he refused to go to his beloved Greece while the military junta was in power from 1967 to 1974.
The first was in Norwich in 1955–56, when Betjeman opened an exhibition covering the range of Lancaster's output, including posters from the 1930s as well as cartoons, stage designs, watercolours and architectural drawings.
[122] In 1967 a London show concentrated on his costumes and scenery, with examples of work from plays, ballets, opera and, exceptionally, film (Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, 1965).
"[127] The obituary in The Times described him as "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.
[128] Although he was much praised at the time – Anthony Powell said, "Osbert kept people going by his own high spirits and wit"[103][n 18] – Lancaster was conscious that the work of a political cartoonist is ephemeral, and he did not expect longevity for his topical drawings.
[43][47][126] Despite the topical nature of Lancaster's cartoons, they remain of interest to the historian; Lucie-Smith quotes a contemporary tribute by Moran Caplat: "No social history of this [20th] century will be complete without him.
[131][132] The survival of Lancaster's costumes and scenery for Pineapple Poll and La fille mal gardée into the 21st century is exceptional, and most of even his highest-praised productions for repertory works have been succeeded by new designs by artists from Hockney to Ultz.
