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Island of Adventure 03

From Enid Blyton's The Island of Adventure, 1944

Cecil Stuart Hazell Tresilian[notes 1] (1891-1974) was a British artist and illustrator, best known for his illustrations of children's books, including Rudyard Kipling's Animal Stories and All the Mowgli Stories, and Enid Blyton Adventure Series.

He was born in Barton Regis, Gloucestershire, on 12 July 1891, and grew up in Islington, London, where his father worked as a colliery clerk. He became a professional vocalist, and later served in the Army Audit Department.[1] He studied art at Regent Street Polytechnic, where he became a pupil teacher, and gained a scholarship to the Royal College of Art before the First World War.[2] During the war he served with the Fifth London Regiment as a Second Lieutenant. He was wounded and captured in 1918, and held at Rastatt. The drawings he did during his incarceration are held at the Imperial War Museum.[1]

He was repatriated at the end of 1918, and the following year married Sybil Alfreda Mayer in Kilburn, London. He returned to Regent Street Polytechnic as a teacher,[1] his students including Charles Keeping. His teaching style was hands-off: Keeping recalled that he would give his illustration night class a theme, "then he'd go out and play snooker for the rest of the evening; to reappear just five minutes before the end of the session and put all the work on the board and do a brief criticism."[3]

He was a prolific illustrator from the early 1930s to the late 1960s, working on magazines like The Wide World Magazine, Nash’s Pall Mall Magazine, Zoo, The Passing Show, The Wide World Magazine and Britannia and Eve, as well as numerous children's books for Macmillan, Cambridge University Press, Jonathan Cape, The Bodley Head and others. In 1961 he was co-author, with Herbert J. Williams, of Human Anatomy for Art Students.[1]

He was a brother of the Art Workers Guild, becoming a master in 1960, and a member of the Society of Graphic Art, serving as its president from 1962 to 1965. He exhibited at the Royal Academy and the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, and had his first solo show, including his illustrations for Kipling's Mowgli Stories, drawings done in London Zoo, and photographs, in 1970 at Upper Grosvenor Galleries.[2] He retired to Winslow, Buckinghamshire, where he died in the summer of 1974.[1]

Books illustrated[]

  • G. W. Abbott, Down the Big River, 1964
  • Anne Akpabot, Sade and Her Friends, 1967
  • Bridget Akwada, Two Stories from Africa, 1964
  • Jane Annixter, The Roan Runner, 1961
  • M. E. Atkinson, Challenge to Adventure, 1942
    • -- The Monster of Widgeon Weir, 1943
    • -- The Nest of the Scarecrow, 1944
    • -- Problem Party, 1945
    • -- Challenge to Adventure, 1950
  • Michael John Barrett, Antarctic Secret, 1965
  • H. Mortimer Batten, Wild and Free: Stories of Canadian Animals, 1961
  • Enid Blyton, The Island of Adventure, 1944
    • -- The Castle of Adventure, 1946
    • -- The Valley of Adventure, 1947
    • -- The Sea of Adventure, 1948
    • -- The Mountain of Adventure, 1949
    • -- The Ship of Adventure, 1950
    • -- The Circus of Adventure, 1952
    • -- The River of Adventure, 1955
    • -- Stories of Adventure, (contains The Island of Adventure, The Castle of Adventure, The Valley of Adventure), 1987
  • Patricia Case, Sons of the Tiger, 1952
  • Arthur Catherall, Yugoslav Mystery, 1962
    • -- The Strange Invader, 1964
  • Joseph E. Chipperfield, Petrus, Dog of the Hill Country, 1960
    • -- The Grey Dog from Galtymore, 1961
  • Mazo de la Roche, The Sacred Bullock and Other Stories, 1939
  • Eilis Dillon, Midsummer Magic, 1949
  • John William Dunne, The Jumping Lions of Borneo, 1937
  • Lydia Elliott, Boys, Bears and Blizzards, 1955
  • M. L. Emslie, Journey to the Amazon, 1960
    • -- Three in the Andes, 1960
    • -- Lapland Journey, 1962
    • -- Spitsbergen Adventure, 1962
  • Sir Vivian Fuchs, Antarctic Adventure: The Commonwealth Trans-Atlandtic Expedition 1955-58, 1959
  • Ric Garvey, Animal Orphanage, 1967
  • Michael Gaunt, Brim's Boat, 1964
    • -- Brim Sails Out, 1966
  • S. C. George, Amat's Elephant, 1959
  • Martin Gregg, Dark Amazon, 1957
  • W. E. Johns, Biggles in Borneo, 1943
    • -- Sinister Service: The Adventures of Lance Lovell, 1949
    • -- Biggles in the Baltic, 1952
  • Geraldine Kaye, Hamid and the Fisherman, 1968
  • Rudyard Kipling, Animal Stories, 1932
    • -- All the Mowgli Stories, 1932
    • -- Kim, 1958
    • -- The Jungle Book, 1986
    • -- The Second Jungle Book, 1986
  • Olwen Lawton, Land in Peril, 1958
  • Richard Llewellyn, Sweet Witch, 1959
  • Audrey Lousada, Poachers in the Serengeti, 1965
  • Dorothy Ann Lovell, Sam Does His Stuff, 1943
  • H. K. Luce, Jesus of Nazareth, 1961
  • Allan Mackinnon, The Boys of Glen Morroch, 1961
  • K. Maclure, Jeremy "Down Under", 1955
  • Nancy Martin, Young Farmers in Denmark, 1954
  • Frank Hulme Melland, Elephants in Africa, 1938
  • John Michael, Chokra, 1957
  • Anthony A. Nye, Prince Curly, 1952
  • Winefride Nolan, Rich Inheritance: A Story of Catholic Elizabethan England, 1952
    • -- Exiles Come Home, 1955
  • Mary Pratchett, The Quest of Ati Manu, 1960
    • -- Come Home Brumby, 1961
    • -- Circus Brumby, 1962
    • -- Stranger in the Herd, 1964
  • E. E. Reynolds (ed.), Beavers: Pages from the Writings of Grey Owl, 1940
    • -- Behind the Ranges: Tales of Explorers, Pioneers and Travellers, 1940
    • -- On the Trail: Pages from the Writings of Grey Owl, 1940
    • -- Unknown Ways: More Tales of Explorers, Pioneers and Travellers, 1940
  • C. Bernard Rutley, Wild Life in the Ice and Snow, 1950
    • -- Wild Life in the Bush and Jungle, 1954
  • Sir Walter Scott, simplified by C. Kingley Williams, The Talisman,1959
  • Rebe Taylor, Minky the Kitten, 1948
  • Mary Treadgold, We Couldn't Leave Dinah, 1941
  • Henry Treece, Hounds of the King, with two radio plays by the author, 1965
  • Rowland Walker, M.T.B. Captain, 1943
    • -- Spitfires Over Malta, 1944
  • Christine Weston, Bhimsa, the Dancing Bear, 1948
  • James Howard Williams, The Spotted Deer, 1957
    • -- In Quest of a Mermaid, 1960
  • Elizabeth Yates, High Holiday, 1945

Notes[]

  1. His birth was registered as "Cecil Stewart Hazell Tresilian" but he was baptised with the spelling "Stuart", and was known professionally as Stuart Tresilian. Steve Holland, Stuart Tresilan, Bear Alley, 26 February 2014

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Steve Holland, Stuart Tresilian, Bear Alley, 26 February 2014
  2. 2.0 2.1 David Buckman, Artists in Britain Since 1945 Volume T, Goldmark Gallery, 2012, p. 83
  3. Douglas Martin, Charles Keeping: An Illustrator's Life, Julia MacRae Books, 1993, p. 37
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