Charles Alfred Mozley (29 May 1914 – 11 January 1991) was a British artist who was also a teacher. He was a prolific book illustrator and designer of book covers, posters and prints.

Biography

Mozley was born in

Darnall Darnall is a suburb of eastern Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. Darnall is approximately east-north-east of Sheffield city centre. History Darnall was initially a small hamlet usually included with Attercliffe. William Walker, a residen ...

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...

, and, while still a schoolboy, attended the

Sheffield School of Art Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) is a public research university in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The university is based on two sites; the City Campus is located in the city centre near Sheffield station, Sheffield railway station, whil ...

. An exhibition of his artworks were held at the Hibbert Brothers Gallery in the city in 1933. After spending 1933 teaching in Sheffield, Mozley won a scholarship to the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public university, public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City, London, White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design uni ...

, RCA, in 1934. When he left the RCA in 1937, Mozley taught life drawing, anatomy and lithography at the

Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts Camberwell College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London, a public art and design university in London, England. The college offers further and higher education programmes, including postgraduate and PhD awards. ...

. He also quickly established himself as a freelance artist. Invasion Preparations in an English Village Art

At the start of the Second World War, Mozley joined the British Army and worked for military intelligence and on camouflage designs. In 1940, Mozley submitted a number of works to the

War Artists' Advisory Committee The War Artists' Advisory Committee (WAAC), was a British government agency established within the Ministry of Information at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 and headed by Sir Kenneth Clark. Its aim was to compile a comprehensive artis ...

. The Committee purchased one of these pieces, ''A Kentish Lane, 1940'' and also issued Mozley with a wartime sketching permit which allowed him to paint outdoors, mainly in London and Plymouth, during the conflict. WAAC purchased at least one further work from Mozley in June 1944. Mozley was in the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is the engineering arm of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces ...

, and retired with the rank of Acting Lieutenant-Colonel. After the War, Mozley established himself as a prolific commercial artist working in different techniques. He designed film posters for

Alexander Korda Sir Alexander Korda (; born Sándor László Kellner; ; 16 September 1893 – 23 January 1956)

, theatre posters for the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith and worked on mural designs for the

Festival of Britain The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition and fair that reached millions of visitors throughout the United Kingdom in the summer of 1951. Labour Party cabinet member Herbert Morrison was the prime mover; in 1947 he started with the ...

. As well as designing hundreds of book covers, Mozley created book illustrations for the Limited Editions Club of New York, the publishers

Chatto and Windus Chatto & Windus is an imprint of Penguin Random House that was formerly an independent book publishing company founded in London in 1855 by John Camden Hotten. Following Hotten's death, the firm would reorganize under the names of his business ...

and for the

Folio Society The Folio Society is an independent London-based publisher, founded by Charles Ede in 1947 and incorporated in 1971. Formerly privately owned, it became an employee ownership trust in 2021. It produces illustrated hardback fine press edit ...

. Interior decoration, drawings for television commercials and press adverts for

British European Airways British European Airways (BEA), formally British European Airways Corporation, was a British airline which existed from 1946 until 1974. BEA operated to Europe, North Africa and the Middle East from airports around the United Kingdom. The ...

were also undertaken. Mozley designed posters for the

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or as the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent home counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The Undergro ...

Shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses Science Biology * Seashell, a hard outer layer of a marine ani ...

and for

Lyons Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

tea-rooms. In 1979, a retrospective of Mozley's work was held at the King Street Gallery in London and his drawings of Venice were exhibited at

Somerset House Somerset House is a large neoclassical architecture, neoclassical building complex situated on the south side of the Strand, London, Strand in central London, overlooking the River Thames, just east of Waterloo Bridge. The Georgian era quadran ...

in support of the

Venice in Peril Fund Venice in Peril Fund CIO is a British registered charity. It raises funds to restore and conserve the art and architecture of Venice, and to investigate ways to protect them against future risks, particularly rising sea levels. Although it foc ...

Family life

While he was at the Royal College of Art, Mozley met Eileen Kohn, who was also an artist, and they married in 1938. Her sister Joan would later marry one of Mozley's contemporaries,

Edwin La Dell Thomas Edwin La Dell (7 January 1914 – 27 June 1970) was a British printmaker, lithographer, illustrator and painter active during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Life and career Edwin La Dell was the son of Thomas La Dell, a Sheffield-bo ...

. Mozley had two sons and three daughters. Mozley died of

heart failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome caused by an impairment in the heart's ability to Cardiac cycle, fill with and pump blood. Although symptoms vary based on which side of the heart is affected, HF ...

in 1991, surviving his wife by two years. From 1971 until his death, Mozley lived in

Kew Kew () is a district in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Its population at the 2011 census was 11,436. Kew is the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens ("Kew Gardens"), now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace. Kew is ...

, in a house which he had bought from another artist, John Plant. A retrospective exhibition of Mozley's lithographic work was held at the

Barbican Centre The Barbican Centre is a performing arts centre in the Barbican Estate of the City of London, England, and the largest of its kind in Europe. The centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings a ...

library in 2002. The same year, Grey College in Durham also hosted an overview of his career. Three years later, the Barbican Centre held an exhibition of his artworks.

References

External links

*
Works by Mozley
in the

London Transport Museum The London Transport Museum (LTM) is a transport museum based in Covent Garden, London. The museum predominantly hosts exhibits relating to the heritage of Transport in London, London's transport, as well as conserving and explaining the histo ...

collection {{DEFAULTSORT:Mozley, Charles 1914 births 1991 deaths 20th-century English male artists 20th-century English painters Academics of Camberwell College of Arts Alumni of the Royal College of Art Alumni of Sheffield Hallam University Artists from Sheffield British Army personnel of World War II English war artists Camoufleurs English illustrators English male painters People from Darnall People from Kew, London Royal Engineers officers World War II artists 20th-century British war artists