Hampshire will be marking what would have been the 100th birthday in 2023 of one of Britain’s most popular cartoonists.
Norman Thelwell, who made Hampshire his home for more than three decades before his death in 2004, was most famous for his ‘fat ponies’ that are set to be brought to life in a new live-action feature film in his centenary year.
He also produced more than 1,600 cartoons for satirical magazine Punch, alongside many other top titles including Tatler, and wrote 32 books which sold over two million copies in the UK and translated into many languages, including Finnish and Japanese.
Celebrating that legacy, Mottisfont – an 18th-century house and medieval priory now owned by the National Trust – will be marking the milestone anniversary with a ‘100 years of Norman Thelwell’ exhibition (21 January – 7 May 2023).
He was born in Birkenhead but moved with his family to a house and studio at Timsbury, near the town of Romsey in Hampshire’s picturesque Test Valley, where he lived for 35 years.
The artist died on 7 February 2004, aged 80, and is buried at the village’s St Andrew’s Churchyard.
While best known worldwide for his trademark pony cartoons, Thelwell was passionate about the countryside as well asconservation, and during his lifetime created sketches and paintings of the natural world around him.
From his home, which was close to Mottisfont, he captured the landscape and villages of the surrounding Hampshire countryside on canvas.
In addition to Thelwell’s much-loved ponies and other humorous illustrations, the centenary exhibition will also feature his paintings of local landscapes, including the village of Mottisfont.
With over 50 artworks, many never shown before, the exhibition will take visitors on a journey through the artist’s life, from childhood sketches and family memories to an exploration into the subjects Thelwell felt passionately about.
He was an early environmental campaigner and his cartoons of factory farming, the destruction of habitat and pollution came together in his 1971 publication, The Effluent Society.
Meanwhile, independent film company Blenheim Films aims to bring some of his much-loved characters to the big screen with a live-action adaptation of Thelwell’s cartoons in Merrylegs the Movie (https://blenheimfilms.com).
For more information on the Mottisfont exhibition, visit
For tourist information about Hampshire see www.visit-hampshire.co.uk
Photo, above: ©Norman Thelwell
Photo, below: Mottisfont ©Simon Newman
