Bertram Prance

1889–1958

British (England, Devon, Bideford; England, London)

Bertram was a British illustrator and artist, born in Bideford, Devon, where his father skippered his own fishing vessel. He left school at age 12 and was employed by a solicitor, but soon became a pupil at the local School of Art and Science. Prance took a local studio and became a prolific producer of humorous drawings for dozens of publications, including Bystander, John Bull, Punch, Tit Bits and national newspapers. Bertram was mostly active in London where he was a member of Savage and London Sketch Clubs, and in 1948 the latter’s president. During World War II worked he on mechanical drawings for the Admiralty.
Because Prance’s style of humor and meticulous black-and-white draughtsmanship became out of fashion in the popular press, he later on concentrated on book illustration, advertising work and his own landscape gouaches and oil paintings.