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Kenneth MahoodKenneth Mahood (1930-2020) was born in Belfast. After leaving school, he began to paint around 1950 while working for a lithographic designer. This led to his having two solo exhibitions of his predominantly abstract paintings with the Waddington Gallery between 1955 and 1958. In parallel, Mahood was establishing a reputation as a cartoonist with Punch magazine, and he also drew for The New Yorker, The Financial Times and The Daily Mail. He became the art editor of Punch from 1960–1965; and the political cartoonist for The Times from 1966-1969. Mahood also illustrated a series of his own books, including The Secret Sketchbook of a Bloomsbury Lady (1982).
Mahood moved to London in 1955 where he stayed for the rest of his life, apart from his regular trips to his favourite cities, New York and Paris. He was an inveterate collector of ephemera and old photographs, and greatly admired the works of Kurt Schwitters. In the late 1980s, Mahood began to concentrate on making his own distinctive mixed media collage works, often incorporating paint and fragments from old letters and postcards. These works were exhibited in New York and London, where they were shown at the Royal Academy and regularly in group exhibitions with England & Co.
