School of Art

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:

Leslie 'Spy' Ward

Born: 1851   Died: 1922

Caricaturist. Sir Leslie Matthew ‘Spy’ Ward. Son of artists Edward Matthew Ward and Henrietta Ward, and great-grandson of the artist James Ward. He began caricaturing while still at school at Eton College, using his classmates and teachers as subjects. He left school in 1869 and was too afraid to tell his father he wished to be an artist, so with his father’s encouragement took a job in the studio of architect and family friend Sydney Smirke. After an unhappy year, artist W.P Frith spoke to Ward’s father on his behalf, and he was able to enter the Royal Academy Schools in 1871. In 1873 he sent some of his work to Vanity Fair, and ended up being hired as an artist for the magazine. He chose the pseudonym ‘Spy’ and went on to have over 1300 published portraits, more than half of all caricatures ever printed. This led to the style being named after him, now commonly known as ‘spy cartoons’. He worked originally in watercolours, which were then transformed into colour lithographs for reproduction. Ward worked at Vanity Fair for 40 years, and his autobiography “Forty Years of ‘Spy’” was published in 1915. He was knighted in 1918. 300 of his original watercolours are on permanent display at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Objects in the collections associated with this artist/maker

Rev. Hubert Murray Burge DD, Headmaster of Winchester PR3615 Prints



 
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