Ernest Heber Thompson was born in Dunedin in 1892 and as a cartoonist was the first contributor to The Sketcher, a Dunedin magazine composed of illustration and humourous writing. Thompson taught at the Dunedin School of Art in the early twentieth century and in 1915 enlisted to fight in World War One, serving as a sergeant in the 3rd New Zealand Rifle Brigade. Whilst stationed in France from 1916 to 1917 Thompson completed a large number of cartoons some of which featured in the fortnightly soldiers‘ magazine , Chronicles of NZEF, and in the annual, New Zealand at the Front, published during the final years of the Great War.
Badly wounded at Messines on 7 June 1917, Thompson was transported to England for convalescence and remained there after the War. Thompson exhibited widely, including at the Royal Academy and recorded his travels throughout Europe drawing many of the people he encountered in his travels. Thompson served as representative of the New Zealand National Art Gallery in London, from 1951 to 1966. Thompson died in England in 1971.
Eric Bloomfield has a tragic account of a 1926 subject of Thompson's portraiture in London here.
A selection of Thompson's wartime art can be viewed here.
The following Thompson cartoons are from the second issue of The Sketcher published August 1913. As well as providing all the cartoons for the magazine Thompson illustrated several of the advertisements.
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