Anton, Antonia Yeoman (1907 – 1970)

Anton original cartoon artwork.

Anton was born Beryl Thompson in Queensland, Australia. In 1911 her family returned to England, settling in Brighton. In her early twenties she became a Roman Catholic, and took the name "Antonia". In 1937 she formed a partnership with her brother Harold producing cartoons over the signature "Anton". "I was quite modern when I started", Yeoman later remembered: "I was told a couple of bishops had given up Punch when I started drawing for them." After the war his job as director of an advertising agency left him less time for drawing. From the mid 1950s onwards the Anton cartoons were entirely hers. Her drawings were very popular, and appeared in Tatler, Lilliput, Men Only, New Yorker, Evening Standard, Private Eye and Punch. As The Times commented, "she could conjure up with great skill the atmosphere of the smart cocktail party, the plushy restaurant and the fashionable milliner's, where one of her large, expensively-preserved matrons might be trying on not altogether suitable hats.”