Tony Holland was born in Peterborough, Northamptonshire, on 7 August 1932, the son of a schoolmaster. He went to school in Market Bosworth, Leicestershire, and in 1950 went to read English, History and French at Sheffield University. After graduating in 1953 he spent his National Service in the RAF. On leaving the RAF in 1955 he taught English, history and maths at schools in Leicestershire and London for three years, before becoming a professional freelance cartoonist and illustrator.
A self-taught artist, Holland sold his first cartoon to the Daily Sketch in the 1950s, and later drew a series of long thin cartoons for the paper, called ‘Tall Story’. These were printed vertically along the gutter and ran for eighteen months. In 1963 Holland became City cartoonist on the Sunday Telegraph, producing a series of pocket cartoons entitled ‘Nine to Five.’ In 1966 he began another series in the Daily Telegraph, under the title ‘Day by Day’, and he also provided cartoons for the paper’s Peterborough column, working alongside Basil Hone. Each cartoonist submitted three roughs a day, one of which would be selected for the next day’s paper.
Holland has also contributed to Punch, Accountancy – including colour cartoons, Daily Mirror, Time & Tide, Statist, News of the World, New Elizabethan, Spectator, Oldie and various financial journals. He works in felt-tip pen using Pantone colours on cartridge paper. Holland was married to the cartoonist Lesley-Ann Vernon. He finally retired from the Sunday Telegraph in 1996.
68 uncatalogued originals [PU0620 – 0687] (approx. 1960s)