Mel Calman was born in 1931 in Stamford Hill to a Lithuanian mother and Russian father who had immigrated to London in 1912.

Following a period of National Service, Calman enrolled at the Borough Polytechnic Art School and later Goldsmiths and St Martin’s School of Art where he studied illustration.

From 1956 he worked as a freelance cartoonist and obtained his first newspaper work in 1957 for the Daily Express. In 1962 he began a collaboration with the Sunday Times and with the Sunday Telegraph the following year. During his career Calman has worked with the BBC, The Observer, Cosmopolitan and House & Garden.

From 1979 he began drawing a regular front page cartoon for The Times.

He died in 1994 aged 63.

References:
Kent Library

Glossary

  • Drawing

    The depiction of shapes and forms on a flat surface chiefly by means of lines although colour and shading may also be included. Materials most commonly used are pencil, ink, crayon, charcoal, chalk and pastel, although other materials, including paint, can be used in combination.