Sue Macartney Snape biography

Sue Macartney Snape (born 1957; Australia and UK)

Sue Macartney Snape has been poking fun at British stereotypes for over fifteen years in the pages of the Saturday Telegraph Magazine. With pin-sharp commentary by Victoria Mather, she has skewered fanciful fashions and foibles since 1994 in their weekly 'Social Stereotypes' column. Several volumes of collated columns were published as stand alone volumes, the first of which was 1996's Absolutely Typical.

John Julius Norwich has described her as a "master of caricature" and has said that her paintings "illustrate the English social scene more brilliantly and with greater accuracy than those of any other painter working today." Cartoonist Martin Rowson has said her artwork "can encapsulate an entire social milieu in a drooping eyelid or a flared nostril." Elsewhere she has been described as the "Wodehouse of Art".

Born in Tanzania, Sue Macartney Snape grew up in Australia, arriving in London in 1980. She has exhibited widely, including sell out exhibitions with David Ker, Jonathan Clark and at the Sloane Club. She has also painted many commissions, including ones from Glyndebourne, The Metropolitan Opera and Barbara Amiel (Mrs. Conrad Black).

Initially trained as a botanical artist, Macartney-Snape's first exhibition of caricatures was held in Melbourne; she subsequently emigrated to the United Kingdom. An early venture was The Upper Crust Calendar, which was a calendar featuring Macartney-Snape's caricatures which was popular with the British upper-classes and sold in Harrods and at the General Trading Company in 1985. In 1993 several of her works were used by English author Jilly Cooper to structure the novella Araminta's Wedding, which satirised upper-class life and inheritance. She has also created new cover illustrations for the novels of Anthony Powell.

She won the 2004 Pont Award for drawing the British Character for her funny, colourful caricatures of folks from all walks of life, which have been collected in a series of books over the years. Another book, Araminta's Wedding, was a humorous story of the upper classes by Jilly Cooper.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery

See SUE MACARTNEY SNAPE ART.