| Born
in Australia to English parents who owned an export
and packing business, at the age of two Bateman's family
returned to England. Bateman studied at the Westminster
School of Art, Goldsmith's College at New Cross, and
with Charles van Havenmaet. His first cartoons appeared
in The Royal Magazine and The Tatler. He began contributing
to Punch Magazine in 1906, and in 1912 did a weekly
series of sketches for the theatre page of the Sketch.
Prior to the First World War, Bateman belonged to the
London Sketch Club, who would meet to sketch and discuss
sketches. Advertiser's Weekly noted that Bateman's work
was ideally suited for double-crown posters as the work
was dependent upon detail, 'the exact expression on
a face, the objects on a dressing-table', etc. At the
age of 21 he had to decide between comic art work or
full-time painting. Advertiser's Weekly considered Bateman's
decision to continue with cartoons as important, although
his work would have not been as familiar to advertising
students as David Langdon or Bert Thomas, despite previous
work for Guinness and Lloyd's Bondman Tobacco.
Invalided out of the First World War in 1915, having
spent time with the London Regiment, Bateman became
known for his cartoons for Punch. In the twenties
and thirties Bateman made his name through The Tatler,
The Sketch and The Bystander, specialising in the
depiction of angry outrage caused by anti-social or
unthinking behaviour: 'His cartoons, typified in The
Man Who… series, depict with frenzied exaggeration
the uproar caused by social bloomers.' Between the
wars he worked on film and poster advertisements for
firms such as Lucky Strike, Guinness, and Moss Bros.
Bateman is described as one of the first graphic artists
to adopt a cinematic approach. One critic argued that
the Bateman episodic format was "closely parallelled
in the silent movie, such as the slow build up to
a climax or denouement, and a new emphasis on gesture
and facial expression". In the Second World War,
Bateman designed posters for the Ministry of Power
and the Ministry of Air Production, and the Ministry
of Health, including his most famous posters: 'Coughs
and Sneezes Spread Diseases'. Bateman published several
books including A Book of Drawings (1921),
More Drawings (1922), Bateman (1931)
The Art of Caricature (1936) and On the
Move in England (1940). Henry Mayo Bateman died
in 1970.
Information taken from: 'Henry M. Bateman',
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTbateman.htm;
Darracott, J. and Loftus, B., Second World War
Posters, 1981, p.20; 'Herbert Mayo Bateman', Poster
Database, London Transport Museum; 'Artist Who Got
A Poster Idea While Running for a Bus', Advertiser's
Weekly, April 13 1944, p.44; Farman, J., http://www.galleryonthegreen.co.uk/mainfiles/sketch/history.htm;
Caption on exhibit E.158-1973, displayed at the Power
of the Poster exhibition, held at the V&A, 1997.
Related
Texts:
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H.M.Bateman, 2001
Bateman's most famous drawing "The
Man Who..." series of social gaffes and
faux pas first appeared in "Tatler"
in 1912. Working in pencil, pen, ink and water-colour,
he was a master of the cartoon story without
words. "The Prion Cartoon Classics"
are an on-going series show-casing the finest
and funniest comic cartoonists of the 20th century
from Britain, Europe and the United States.
(Taken from Amazon)
Jensen, J. (ed.), The
Man Who...and Other Drawings, 1975/1991;
The
Best of H.M. Bateman, 1987; The
Man Who Was H. M. Bateman, 1982;
Bateman, H.M., H.M. Bateman
by Himself, 1937; Bateman, M., The Man
Who Drew the Twentieth Century, 1969.
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Related Links: H.M.
Bateman, Cartoonistx}
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