Charlie Mackesy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Charlie Mackesy
Born
Charles Mackesy

(1962-12-11) 11 December 1962 (age 59)
Northumberland, United Kingdom
NationalityBritish
OccupationAuthor, painter
Years active1960s - present
Notable work
The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, And The Horse

Charlie Mackesy (born December 11, 1962)[1] is a British artist, illustrator and the author of The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse.

His award-winning work has featured in books, private collections, galleries, magazine covers, street lamp posts, school classrooms, cafés, women’s safe houses, churches, prisons, hospital wards and countless other public spaces around the world.[1] Mackesy was contacted by an editor who had seen his drawings on Instagram and subsequently published with her on Ebury.[2] The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, first published in October 2019, and has spent over 100 weeks on the Sunday Times Bestsellers List top ten[3] and is the longest Sunday Times Hardback Number One of all time. His book was selected as the Waterstones Book of the Year 2019 and the Barnes and Noble Book of the Year 2019[4] (the first ever book to be awarded both in the same year) and was shortlisted for the British Book Awards in 2020.[5]

Mackesy was amongst the winners of the 2020 Nielsen Bestseller Awards,[6] with the The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse achieving Platinum status. All titles that achieve Platinum status are inducted into the "21st century Hall of Fame", which now includes 149 titles. In 2020, eight books passed the Platinum Award million copy sales threshold. Mackesy was awarded Maddox Gallery Artist of the Year[7] at the GQ Men of the Year Awards in 2020 and Illustrator of the Year[8] at the British Book Awards in 2021. Mackesy is currently working on an animated film of the book.

Personal life[]

Born Charles Mackesy, Mackesy grew up in Northumberland[9] and attended Radley College and Hexham Queen Elizabeth High School. He also briefly attended university twice, but left on both occasions within a week.

Mackesy began his career as a cartoonist for The Spectator, before becoming a book illustrator for Oxford University Press.[3] He also worked with Richard Curtis on the set of Love Actually to create a set of drawings to be auctioned for Comic Relief[3] and has continued to work with the charity that he loves. He was selected to work on Nelson Mandela's Unity Series project, a lithograph project working together with Mandela on the drawings he made.[10] His bronzes can be found in public spaces in London, including Highgate Cemetery and the Brompton Road. His paintings have been exhibited widely, most frequently with galleries in London and New York. He has lived and painted in South Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the United States of America. He resides between Brixton, London and Suffolk with his dog Barney.[3] Away from art Mackesy co-runs Mama Buci, a honey social enterprise in Zambia, and has helped run a homeless project in London.

References[]

  1. ^ a b Birchall, Katy (2021-01-02). "Charlie Mackesy on The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse: 'It's humbling... The reaction was beyond anything I ever imagined'". Country Life. Retrieved 2021-10-22.
  2. ^ Flood, Alison (2019-11-09). "A boy, a mole, a fox and a horse: the recipe for a Christmas bestseller". The Guardian. Retrieved 2020-11-30.
  3. ^ a b c d Jones, Dylan (2020-11-27). "Charlie Mackesy: 'Nurses using my drawings is a career highlight' - British GQ". British GQ. Retrieved 2020-11-30.
  4. ^ "The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse Is Barnes & Noble's 2019 Book of the Year". Barnes & Noble Reads. 2019-12-05. Retrieved 2021-10-22.
  5. ^ "The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse". Waterstones. Waterstones Booksellers Limited. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
  6. ^ "Osman, Eddo-Lodge and Mackesy win at Nielsen Bestseller Awards | The Bookseller". www.thebookseller.com. Retrieved 2021-10-27.
  7. ^ "Charlie Mackesy Wins Maddox Gallery Artist of the Year | At the GQ Men of the Year Awards 2020". Maddox Gallery. Retrieved 2021-10-25.
  8. ^ "Illustrator of the Year | British Books Awards 2021 | The Bookseller". www.thebookseller.com. Retrieved 2021-10-25.
  9. ^ Barratt, Sarah (2021-01-26). "Charlie Mackesy says famous friend inspired The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse". Red Online. Retrieved 2021-10-22.
  10. ^ Cascone, Sarah (2018-07-18). "Nelson Mandela Was an Artist, Too, and Now His Family Has Revealed Never-Before-Seen Artworks to Mark His 100th Birthday". artnet News. Retrieved 2020-11-30.

External links[]

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