TERENCE CUNEO OBE 1907-1996
Terence Tenison Cuneo is one of the most highly regarded transport artists internationally of all time. He was a British/American painter and illustrator, born in London. His parents, both artists, the American-born Cyrus Cuneo and Nell Tenison met while studying under Whistler in Paris. They gave Terence his initial instruction in art, but his main training was at Chelsea School of Art and the Slade School.
In the 1930s Cuneo worked primarily as an illustrator for a number of magazines and book publishers. During World War Two Terence he joined the army and became a sapper also working with the War Artists Advisory Committee, and in this role he produced illustrations of various factories during wartime and other wartime events.
Soon after the end of the war Terence Cuneo was commissioned to produce a series of paintings of railways and their locomotives. A significant point in his career was his appointment as official artist for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, which brought his name before the public worldwide. There then followed a number of major commissions including portraits of HM Queen Elizabeth and Field Marshall Montgomery. His work included official portraits, ceremonial, military, and engineering subjects and in particular railways. He received more commissions from industry, which included depicting manufacturing, mineral extraction and road building, including the M1 Motorway. But he was most famous for his paintings of locomotives and the railway as a whole. Cuneo’s talents spanned a wide range from big game in Africa to landscapes. From 1954 his works included a small mouse, sometimes lifelike, sometimes cartoonish, this became his trademark, they can be difficult to detect and many people enjoy scouring his paintings to find one, even some of his portraits of the famous contain a mouse.
His work has been used in a variety of ways, from Signed Limited Edition Prints to book jackets and model railway catalogues to posters and jigsaws and even Royal Mail postage stamps his paintings have appeared on the stamps of both Great Britain and Isle of Man.
Cuneo was not only one of the worlds greatest military painters but he also one of the top railway artists as well. His autobiography, The Mouse and his Master, was published in 1977 and The Railway Painting of Terence Cuneo in 1984.
His work can also be found in many museums, officers’ messes, and galleries, the world over including Lloyds of London and the Royal institution. A life size bronze memorial statue of Cuneo stood in the main concourse at Waterloo Station in London for many years and has now been relocated to Brompton Barracks, Chatham.