Mary Tourtel (born Mary Caldwell on 28 January 187415 March 1948) was a British artist and creator of the comic strip Rupert Bear. Her works have sold 50 million copies internationally.
Early life
Mary Tourtel was born Mary Caldwell, 28 January 1874 at 52 Palace Street, Canterbury, Kent the youngest child of Sarah (née Scott) and Samuel Caldwell, a stained-glass artist and stonemason who restored stained glass for Canterbury Cathedral. The family were artistic and Mary studied art under Thomas Sidney Cooper at the Sidney Cooper School of Art in Canterbury (now the University for the Creative Arts), where she won the Prince of Wales scholarship. The couple travelled to Italy, Egypt, and India and took up flying, which influenced the viewpoints in some of Tourtel's illustrations.
thumb|Plaque in Ivy Lane, Canterbury, marking the place where Tourtel spent her final years|289x289px
The early strips were illustrated by Mary and captioned by her husband, often in poetry and were published as two cartoons a day with a short story underneath. Rupert was originally a brown bear until the Express cut inking expenses giving him his iconic and characteristic white colour. Mary's Rupert was more like a real bear, with a lumbering gait and more fur. The vibrant red and yellow clothing of contemporary Rupert was originally a soft blue jumper with grey trousers. Mary stopped drawing Rupert in 1935 when her eyesight started failing.
Later life
In 1931 Herbert Tourtel died in a German sanatorium, and Mary retired four years later in 1935 after her eyesight and general health deteriorated. The Rupert Bear strips were continued by a Punch illustrator, Alfred Bestall.