Furniss, Harry

Harry Furniss, (born March 26, 1854, Wexford, County Wexford, Ire.—died Jan. 14, 1925, Hastings, East Sussex, Eng.), British caricaturist and illustrator, best known for his political and social lampoons.

Mainly self-taught, he settled in London in 1873 and, before turning wholly to free-lance work in 1894, became very popular as a staff artist for The Illustrated London News (1876–84) and Punch. In his parliamentary cartoons he emphasized idiosyncrasies of face and dress: an amusing example is the strip cartoon “Getting Gladstone’s Collar Up.” He also designed a famous commercial “tramp” poster for a brand of soap (“I used your soap two years ago and have not used any other since”). Strongly critical of the Royal Academy, he held in 1887 an exhibition of parodies of the work of leading Burlington House exhibitors, and in 1890 published Royal Academy Antics. He illustrated many books, including Lewis Carroll’s Sylvie and Bruno (1889) and complete editions of Dickens (1910) and Thackeray (1911). In 1912–13 he worked as a film writer, actor, and producer for Thomas Edison in New York City and London; Our Lady Cinema (1914) outlined his hopes for that art. He was also a novelist, essayist, and writer of art instructional manuals.