Mugshot of Tony Pinchuck

Tony Pinchuck is a Cape Town artist and designer as well as erstwhile travel writer and cartoonist. He has somehow managed to blend all of this into his distinctive range of art – a fresh take on Victorian prints and touristic pictures. His work merges antique prints and traditional pattern into contemporary and quirky images, which he has applied to stationery, fabric and fine art prints. 

Raised in Johannesburg, he began doodling as a toddler with the encouragement of an artist mother who taught him that when it came to art there are no limits. He soon learned that this isn’t always the case when his first colouring in efforts at primary school were returned to him with red crosses marked wherever he’d exuberantly gone outside the lines. 

After leaving school, Pinchuck  lived in London for nearly twenty years , where he trained at The Bartlett School of Architecture and earned a living as a writer, cartoonist and children’s book illustrator. He returned to South Africa in 1997, where he worked on a variety of publications as a sub-editor and designer.

In 2012 he relaunched his artistic career with upcycled masks and small sculptures from found objects. This led to larger-scale creatures created from furniture. He also began working on a range of digitally collaged family portraits worked up from studio photographs. In 2014 he brought out his signature range of African wildlife greeting cards. He has since expanded into fabrics, furniture  and fine art prints.

He won, with author Rosamund Haden, The 2018 MER Award for Illustrated Children's Books for The All Africa Wildlife Express