51_Art Source.qxp_49/51 05/05/2025 13:03 Page 1
Art Source
Creative Lee-way
Lee Fearnley’s figurative oil paintings hang in fine art collections around the world, but his cartoons have graced thousands of mantlepieces on humorous greeting cards from many publishers. PG caught up with this legendary artist who has greeting cards in his DNA.
“Looking back, being a greeting card artist had a certain inevitability about it. My father Alan was a Above: Lee Fearnley working on one highly regarded greeting card of his oil paintings. designer in the '60s and '70s working mainly on cutes, and before he made the leap into fine art oil painting in the early '80s it wasn’t unusual for me to find Keith Chapman, Terry Regan and Ron Locker, all big publishers in the greeting card world at the time, in our home talking to Dad. So, I doubt it was a great surprise when, having had the artistic gene passed on to me, I left Batley Art College to start my journey in greeting cards at publisher WN Sharpe in Bradford as a junior artist, the same company my father had worked for when he had started out. The art director, a lovely man called Roger Hutchings was a former colleague of my Dad, but it was Roger’s elder brother Latif, a contracted artist with Sharpe’s who was to have a huge influence on me in the art of card design. Latif was a tremendous artist, not just in the superb quality of his draughtsmanship, but in the way he used colour. I still admire the old samples I have in my filing cabinet for the way he could use purples, oranges and greens in a scene, be it in the sky or the snow on the ground, and it just looked right. The Sharpe’s studio was a great training ground, and while there I gradually became a humour artist, learning the skills of character design and line work from the cartoonist Ian Jackson, another contracted artist, and how to do my own handwritten editorial from a master calligrapher called Mike Burgin. In 1995, after seven years in the studio I took the plunge and went freelance, working mainly for UK Greetings (or Carlton as it was back then), Hallmark and Regent. In the subsequent 30 years I’ve worked for some great companies and some great art managers, sadly some of both groups are no longer with us. I made the transition from painting in gouache Above left: Humour invariably appears in Lee’s figurative fine art. Left: A design in GBCC’s Look At It This Way range.
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Left: A design for Country Cards. Middle left: Humanity on a bench. Bottom left: An Animalfunction design from GBCC.
(hoping my old aerograph airbrush wouldn't decide to splatter ink all over the lovely background vignette I’d just managed to achieve, after having spent ages masking out all the key components with film), to the digital age, where I can simply highlight an area and press a button for the same effect. I think it’s always been a big advantage that I’ve never tied myself down to just one style of cartoon or one style of humour. Having a variety of ‘looks’ has facilitated a broader client base and avoids my work competing against itself. I’ve worked on many long running, successful humour ranges, including for GBCC, Ling, Country Cards and Woodmansterne, as well as supplying several calendar and jigsaw companies with designs. Over the years creating humorous designs has become more challenging. Whether people’s tastes have become more sophisticated and ‘progressive’, or whether people are just more easily offended, there are many cartoons in my back catalogue that just wouldn’t see the light of day now as they would be considered too crude or would be likely to prompt a flurry of angry letters and emails. The humour in card designs is now ‘cleverer’, often quite subtle, poking fun at life rather than the flaws of the recipient. During the Covid lockdowns my wife Andrea, our dog Steve and I moved from West Yorkshire up to Barnard Castle in County Durham and I now split my time between the greeting card cartooning that I love and my passion for fine art oil painting. I’ve developed something of an obsession for figurative work. I love capturing fleeting moments in time and the subtle interactions between people; the friction, affection and occasional absurdity present in our everyday lives. There’s invariably a little bit of humour added in the scenario somewhere, which I suppose is a nod to my cartoonist background. Barnard Castle, where we live is a bustling market town which serves as an excellent platform for people watching, providing me with a wealth of inspiration for my next paintings. I still love coming up with humorous designs. It’s such a joyous feeling to know you’ve put a smile on someone’s face... the person buying the card and hopefully the person receiving it too.” Lee’s work can be viewed on his website, www.leefearnley.com
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If you are an artist, photographer or verse writer and would like to be considered to appear in Art Source, please contact PG’s Jakki Brown on jakkib@max-publishing.co.uk. This is an editorial feature and as such is free of charge. PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE 51