cartoonist, caricaturist, illustrator and cartoon historian, was born in Sydney on 8 August 1930 (Bryant & Heneage), son of Sydney cartoonist Jack Gibson who was renowned for his 'Hell’ cartoons in Man magazine (1940s to late 1960s). John attended Sydney Boys’ High and studied at the Julian Ashton Art School under Henry Gibbons in 1945-47. He drew cartoons for many Australian magazines and newspapers, including the Australia National Journal, Pertinent and the Sydney Sun.
John Gibson changed his surname to Jensen in the 1940s (there is some speculation that he adopted his mother’s second husband’s surname on his arrival in London in 1950). Aged 19, he left Sydney as 'one way of escaping my father’s reputation as a cartoonist’ and reached London in 1950. In 1951-53 he was pocket cartoonist on the Birmingham Gazette. Following a stint on the Glasgow Bulletin (1953-56), he returned to London in 1956 and freelanced. His cartoons appeared in Punch from 1953, in Lilliput, the Daily Express, Evening News, New Statesman, Sketch, Daily Sketch, Weekend and Sunday Dispatch. From its inception in 1961 until 1979 he was political cartoonist on London's Sunday Telegraph. He also drew caricatures of theatrical personalities for the Tatler (1973-77), social cartoons for the Spectator (1973-76), a weekly strip for Now! (1979-81) and cartoons and illustrations for the Sunday Correspondent but is probably best known for his continuing work on Punch.
Jensen exhibited several cartoons in London's The Great Challenge, an international competitive exhibition of cartooning won by the Australian P.B. Oliphant. Jensen, however, won the award for the world’s most popular cartoonist when the exhibition was shown in Japan. He remained in Fleet Street until he retired, visiting Australia as guest speaker for the Stanley Awards dinner at Melbourne in 1988. In 1990 an exhibition of his caricatures of theatrical and sports personalities, 'John Jensen’s Showbiz’, was held at Chris Beetles Gallery, London, where his cartoons are regularly shown in group sale exhibitions.
As well as illustrating over 70 books, Jensen is also a cartoon historian. He has published a book on H.M. Bateman (1975) and an exhibition and catalogue on Will Dyson, A Sort of Bird of Freedom (1996), for the Centre of Research in Cartoons and Caricature, University of Kent at Canterbury, which he was instrumental in founding and to which he has donated much of his work. He unearthed a collection of work by Dyson, Ruby Lind and Betty Dyson that had been kept unpacked in Betty’s first husband’s London family and organised an exhibition of it at London’s Qantas Gallery in 1995 (see Dyson). He has written Will Dyson’s biography (unpublished) and is now thinking about writing something on his own father, despite owning only a single original cartoon by Gibson.
Jensen is married to Pat Broadhurst (her second marriage, the first being to Felsted) and they have two sons, Sean and Hal. He and Pat live in London.
- Writers:
- Kerr, Joan
- Date written:
- 1996
- Last updated:
- 2007
