Challen, Thomas Arthur TAC (1911 - 1964)

Thomas Arthur Challen TAC original cartoon artwork

Thomas Arthur Challen TAC  was a cheery hard-drinking Bohemian who originally wanted to be a painter. He paid for his tuition to study art at the National Gallery school by playing the piano at a Melbourne silent picture theatre. He drew caricatures for Table Talk before going to London in 1938, where he first contributed to the Daily Herald after Will Dyson's death. Afterwards he became the political cartoonist on the Sunday Pictorial and Tribune. He fled Britain in 1940 along with Sam Wells, and was appointed staff cartoonist on Sydney’s Daily Mirror. In the 1950s he worked for the Sunday Telegraph.