
author
1887–1970
Best known for the wonderfully awkward "The Man Who..." cartoons, this British artist turned tiny social mistakes into huge comic disasters. His drawings are lively, observant, and still easy to enjoy more than a century later.
Born in Australia in 1887 to English parents, he returned to England as a child and studied art in London. He became one of the best-known British humorous artists and cartoonists of the early 20th century, publishing work from a young age and building a reputation for expressive, energetic drawing.
He is especially remembered for his "The Man Who..." series, in which ordinary social blunders set off wildly exaggerated reactions. That mix of sharp observation and visual comedy made his work popular with magazine readers and helped define a classic style of British cartooning.
Bateman also worked in caricature and commercial art, and his career stretched across decades before his death in Malta in 1970. His cartoons remain admired for their movement, timing, and very human sense of embarrassment.