Peggy Fortnum

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Sculpture of Paddington Bear at Paddington Railway Station

Margaret Emily Noel "Peggy" Fortnum (born December 22 or 23, 1919 in Harrow ; † March 28, 2016 ) was a British illustrator .

life and work

Peggy Fortnum, the youngest of six children in her family, spent her childhood holidays in France. She was a daughter of Commander Arthur John Fortnum. She graduated from St. Margarets in Harrow and began her artistic training at the Turnbridge Wells School of Arts and Crafts. During the Second World War she was employed in the Auxiliary Territorial Service , then she lived in London , where she attended the Central School of Arts and Crafts. It was there that John Farleigh , who worked for Sylvan Press, gave her the idea of ​​doing book illustration.

In 1944 she began to work on illustrations for the book Dorcas the Wooden Doll . Among her best-known works are the illustrations for Paddington Bear by Michael Bond . Fortnum created the shape of this bear according to their own ideas and illustrated all Paddington Bear volumes up to 1974. Later illustrators of the Paddington Bear stories such as RW Alley, Fred Banbery, Ivor Wood, Barry Macey, David MacKee and John Lobban adhered strictly at Peggy Fortnum's specifications.

In addition to her numerous book illustrations, Fortnum also worked for children's television and various magazines.

Fortnum illustrated works by Oscar Wilde , Margaret Jowett , Kenneth Grahame and Noel Streatfeild , among others . She did not use color to color her illustrations, but some of her works were later colored - by her niece Caroline Nuttall-Smith, among others.

The illustrations she created for Kenneth Grahames The Reluctant Dragon have been exhibited in the British Museum .

Peggy Fortnum was married to the painter and sculptor Ralph Nuttall-Smith and was friends with Judith Kerr .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Doris De Montreville: Fourth Book of Junior Authors & Illustrators . HW Wilson Company, 1978, ISBN 978-0-8242-0568-3 , p. 133.
  2. ^ Peggy Fortnum obituary
  3. ^ A b Charles Baile de Laperrière: Who's Who in Art: Biographies of Leading Men and Women in the World of Art Today-Artists, Designers, Craftsmen, Critics, Writers, Teachers and Curators, With an Appendi . Hilmarton Manor Press, April 2004, ISBN 978-0-904722-39-0 , p. 254.
  4. ^ A b Jennifer Warner: The Unofficial History of the Paddington Bear . BookCaps Study Guides, 5 September 2014, ISBN 978-1-62917-381-8 , pp. 16 f ..
  5. ↑ a b Biographical information about Fortnum on the de Grummond Collection homepage at www.lib.usm.edu
  6. ^ Judith Kerr's Creatures. A Celebration of Her Life and Work , Harper Collins 2013, ISBN 978-0-00-7513215 , p. 30.
personal data
SURNAME Fortnum, Peggy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fortnum, Margaret Emily Noel; Nuttall-Smith, Margaret Emily Noel (married name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British illustrator, creator of the Paddington Bear
DATE OF BIRTH December 22, 1919 or December 23, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Harrow , England , UK
DATE OF DEATH March 28, 2016