Charlie Mackesy

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Charlie Mackesy

OBE
Born
Charles Mackesy

(1962-12-11) 11 December 1962 (age 61)
Northumberland, England, United Kingdom
Occupation(s)Author, painter
Notable workThe Boy, The Mole, The Fox, And The Horse
RelativesPierse Joseph Mackesy (grandfather)
Piers Mackesy (uncle)
Serena Mackesy (cousin)

Charles Piers Mackesy OBE (born 11 December 1962)[1] is a British artist, illustrator, and the author of The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse.

Career[edit]

Mackesy began his career as a cartoonist for The Spectator, before becoming a book illustrator for Oxford University Press.[2] He also worked with Richard Curtis on the set of Love Actually to create a set of drawings to be auctioned for Comic Relief;[2] he has continued to work with the charity that he loves. He was selected to work on Nelson Mandela's Unity Series project, a lithograph project working together with Mandela on the drawings he made.[3]

His bronzes can be found in public spaces in London, including Highgate Cemetery and the Brompton Road. His paintings have been exhibited widely, most frequently with galleries in London and New York.[2]

His work has been featured in books, private collections, galleries, magazine covers, street lamp posts, school classrooms, cafés, women's safe houses, churches, prisons, hospital wards, and countless other public spaces around the world.[1] Mackesy was contacted by an editor who had seen his drawings on Instagram and subsequently published with her on Ebury Press.[4] The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, was first published in October 2019, and has spent over 100 weeks on the Sunday Times Bestsellers List top ten;[2] it is the longest Sunday Times Hardback Number One of all time. His book was selected as the Waterstones Book of the Year 2019 and the Barnes and Noble Book of the Year 2019[5] (the first ever book to be awarded both in the same year) and was shortlisted for the British Book Awards in 2020.[6]

Mackesy was amongst the winners of the 2020 Nielsen Bestseller Awards,[7] with The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse achieving Platinum status. All titles that achieve Platinum status are inducted into the "21st century Hall of Fame", which now includes 149 titles. In 2020, eight books passed the Platinum Award million copy sales threshold. Mackesy was awarded Maddox Gallery Artist of the Year[8] at the GQ Men of the Year Awards in 2020 and Illustrator of the Year[9] at the British Book Awards in 2021. Mackesy co-directed and co-wrote the animated short film based on the book. In March 2023, Mackesy and Matthew Freud won the Oscar for Animated Short Film for The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse.[10]

In 2022 the BBC made a documentary about Mackesy, the book and the making of the film, titled "Charlie Mackesy: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, the Horse and Me". It featured contributions from Bear Grylls, who was a childhood friend of Mackesy's, Richard Curtis, Oprah Winfrey, J.J. Abrams and Tom Hollander.[11]

Mackesy was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2024 New Year Honours for services to art and literature.[12]

Personal life[edit]

Mackesy grew up in Northumberland[13] and attended Radley College and Queen Elizabeth High School, Hexham. He also briefly attended university twice, but left on both occasions within a week.

Mackesy’s paternal grandparents were Major General Pierse Joseph Mackesy and writer Leonora Mackesy (born 1902), who wrote Harlequin romances as Leonora Starr and Dorothy Rivers.

He has lived and painted in South Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the United States. He resides between Brixton, south London and Suffolk with his dog Barney.[2] Away from art Mackesy co-runs Mama Buci, a honey social enterprise in Zambia, and has helped to run a homeless project in London.

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Birchall, Katy (2 January 2021). "Charlie Mackesy on The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse: 'It's humbling... The reaction was beyond anything I ever imagined'". Country Life. Retrieved 22 October 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d e Jones, Dylan (27 November 2020). "Charlie Mackesy: 'Nurses using my drawings is a career highlight' - British GQ". British GQ. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
  3. ^ Cascone, Sarah (18 July 2018). "Nelson Mandela Was an Artist, Too, and Now His Family Has Revealed Never-Before-Seen Artworks to Mark His 100th Birthday". artnet News. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
  4. ^ Flood, Alison (9 November 2019). "A boy, a mole, a fox and a horse: the recipe for a Christmas bestseller". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
  5. ^ "The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse Is Barnes & Noble's 2019 Book of the Year". Barnes & Noble Reads. 5 December 2019. Retrieved 22 October 2021.
  6. ^ "The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse". Waterstones. Waterstones Booksellers Limited. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
  7. ^ "Osman, Eddo-Lodge and Mackesy win at Nielsen Bestseller Awards". www.thebookseller.com. Retrieved 27 October 2021.
  8. ^ "Charlie Mackesy Wins Maddox Gallery Artist of the Year | At the GQ Men of the Year Awards 2020". Maddox Gallery. Retrieved 25 October 2021.
  9. ^ "Illustrator of the Year | British Books Awards 2021 | The Bookseller". www.thebookseller.com. Retrieved 25 October 2021.
  10. ^ Milligan, Mercedes (12 March 2023). "95th Academy Awards: 'Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio;' 'The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse' Win Animation Oscars". Animation Magazine. Retrieved 13 March 2023.
  11. ^ https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001gnqz/charlie-mackesy-the-boy-the-mole-the-fox-the-horse-and-me
  12. ^ "No. 64269". The London Gazette (Supplement). 30 December 2023. p. N14.
  13. ^ Barratt, Sarah (26 January 2021). "Charlie Mackesy says famous friend inspired The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse". Red Online. Retrieved 22 October 2021.

External links[edit]

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