Artist Diana Thorne

"The dog possesses an ebullience which is a sheer delight."

Diana Thorne was born Ann Woursell on October 7, 1895 in Odessa, Russia.  (Some evidence indicates that she may have actually been born in 1894.)  In her youth, Thorne spent time in Winnipeg, Canada and later on a farm in Calgary, Canada.  She was to eventually become one of America's most recognized canine artists.  Thorne began drawing all her favorite four-legged creatures as a young child.  She was the oldest child in a Jewish family of four girls and two boys.  Her siblings were Abraham, Paula, Judith, Samuel, and Katherine.  Thorne's parents were Chaim and Rose Woursell.  During this period, Jews in Russia were experiencing severe oppression and physical attacks. The situation seemed hopeless.  Canada opened its doors to immigrants fleeing Russia, offering free homestead land in the West.  The family left Canada for Germany around 1912 where Thorne took her first formal art studies at the Imperial Academy in Munich and Charlottenburg Technical College in Berlin.  The First World War began two years later and Thorne and her family were subsequently detained by the German government.  They managed to escape to England, where Thorne was said to have supported herself as a reporter, librarian, writer, bicycle shop owner, and typewriter repair person.  At this time she began her first experiments in both illustration and etching and was said to have studied with artist William Strang.  On September 27, 1920, Thorne and several of her family members arrived in the United States.  Her first published etching, titled "Rollin' Home", was well received in 1926.  From this point on, she became an established artist.  Thorne began commercial artwork in New York City in 1929.   In her private life, she was known as Mrs. Arthur North, claiming to reside at times in Boston, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania or Connecticut.  (The pseudonym Thorne originated from an anagram of the name North.)  There is evidence that Arthur North was actually an alias of artist Carton Moore-Park (1877-1956). This ruse allowed Thorne and Moore-Park to present themselves as a married couple, even though Moore-Park was already married. Frequently, biographies of the artist are filled with inaccuracies supplied by Thorne herself, such as referring to her father as a Scotsman or claiming to be Canadian born, which served to conceal the true details of her past. 

The author-illustrator of more than forty books and illustrator of more than fifty, Thorne's main reason for success was a total dedication to her drawing and a deep love for her subject matter.  A sportswoman and owner of dogs herself, Thorne illustrated (and often authored) children's books dealing with dogs and animal life.  Thorne's longtime publisher was the Saalfield Publishing Company of Akron, Ohio, once a leading publisher of children's literature and paper novelties.  In her etchings of dogs, Thorne had the ability to show motion and action.  A combination of whirling lines with solid lines and light and dark tones brings to the viewer's eyes the dog in motion. Thorne’s dog etchings are admired because they capture the humor and energy transpired by man and dog.  In addition to dog etchings, she is also known for a series of socially sensitive etchings published in a 1928 portfolio, "The Human Comedy".  Thorne also executed a series of popular sports etchings featuring topics such as skiing and boxing which were characterized by multiple images engraved on the same plate.  Very much in demand as an animal portrait painter, Thorne illustrated some of the most famous dogs in America, including Franklin D. Roosevelt's Scottie "Fala" and Admiral Richard E. Byrd's "Igloo", the terrier who accompanied him on his famous Antarctic Expedition.  Diana Thorne was most active between the 1920s and 1940s.  Sadly, she was diagnosed as mentally ill in her later years and committed to New York City's Belleville Hospital in September 1962.  Thorne died in July 1963. 

Diana Thorne's work appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers including The American Magazine, The Literary Digest, Liberty, The Woman's Home Companion, The Household Magazine, Maclean's, Home Arts, Nature Magazine, National Home Monthly, This Week Magazine, The American Kennel Gazette, The New York Times, The Boston Post, and The New York Herald Tribune.  Throughout the 1940s she was a regular contributer of artwork and written articles to the Christian Science Monitor.  Thorne was widely known in New York and London for her artwork.  Noted galleries such as Kennedy & Company and the Schwartz Galleries of New York City, the Gage Gallery of Cleveland, and the Hudson Galleries of Detroit carried many of her etchings, which were produced in editions ranging from fifty to one hundred signed impressions.  Her print, "Pan of Puck Hill", was featured in England's Fine Prints of the Year and was also selected as one of the Graphic Arts Society's Fifty Best Prints of the Year by the Chicago Society of Etchers.  Thorne received widespread acclaim for her unique etchings, sketches, watercolors, sculpture, lithography, and paintings, which were exhibited in the principal cities of the United States and England.  She had her first New York City showing in April 1929 at the Schwartz Galleries in an exhibition titled, "Drypoints and Drawings by Diana Thorne".  In 1930, her work was presented at three solo exhibitions.  The first took place at the Vose Galleries of Boston.  This was followed by additional exhibitions in New York City at Milch Galleries and the Fifty-Sixth Street Galleries.  Her work was also featured at the Brooklyn Museum of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, The College of William & Mary, and the Rhode Island School of Design.  Thorne was an early member of the Associated American Artists.  This organization was created in New York City in 1934 with the mission of bridging the gap between artists and their audiences by making fine art affordable.  A leading publisher of original art, the Associated American Artists commissioned etchings and lithographs from Diana Thorne and other artists.  In 1944, Thorne became the art director of the John C. Winston Company, which also published several of her most popular illustrated children's books.  In addition to many successful shows and exhibitions devoted to her work, she was also awarded memberships in several prestigious print societies and clubs, including the Chicago Society of Etchers, National Association of Women Artists, Royal Society of Painters and Sculptors, Boston Arts Club, Philadelphia Art Alliance, and the California Print Makers.  Thorne's love of dogs and animals is clearly evident in her work.  Diana Thorne had a unique ability to capture the true essence of "Man's Best Friend". 

“In one direction Miss Thorne is a specialist; in puppydom. She seems to possess the happy faculty of finding the most adorable specimens and, with sure and fastidious technique, she records them in all their dumpy, roly-poly perfection, for most puppies are perfect in themselves. Diana Thorne’s etchings are utterly devoid of any suggestion of routine performance. One feels that the artist, in every instance, loves both her subject and her work. This is a precious quality."   The New York Times

"She is a true artist...Above all things, she works within and through the blithe spirit of childhood."   Haldane MacFall

"She has done what not one animal artist in five thousand has been able to do.  She has studied not only the anatomy, but the soul of the dog.  Her dogs are not merely splendid bits of art, they live and breathe and think. They are vibrant with spirit, mischief, and intelligence and that Nameless Something that makes up a true dog's charm and attractiveness."   Albert Payson Terhune

"Miss Thorne is at the onset of a career of astonishing promise justified by her attainment."   Schwartz Galleries

"Her canine friends became something other than mere models to her, for she had the delightful faculty of studying more than their anatomy, of seeing deep into their souls." Dora Albert

"The dogs that Miss Thorne has revitalized in word and picture are living and breathing personalities, with traits that are immediately recognizable by  anyone who has turned for companionship, for amusement, or for solace to a four-footed friend."  Reginald M. Cleveland 

Pat the Terrier

When I first saw Pat he was a tiny puppy cutting up the window of an animal shop.  He was so comical I just had to go inside and meet him.  When I put my hand down to pick him up, he grabbed my sleeve and proceeded to chew off a button.  It was love at first sight.

Pat rode home with me in the taxi, laughing all the way.  At the studio I put him down, and he sat there grinning at me, head cocked to one side, he looked like the perfect little clown; so I went straight to work and etched his first portrait.  The result was Laugh, Clown, Laugh, a picture that became quite a favorite. 

That evening, after Pat had put away a big steak dinner and had worried a pair of slippers dragged from a closet, he curled up and went to sleep.  I put him on the bed and made another sketch--The End of a Perfect Day.

Pat was the best of my models.  Most dogs aren't good posers.  They can't sit still, even for a short period, but Pat, notwithstanding his high spirits, would take almost any position I asked and hold it longer than any other dog I have known.

Today Pat, getting along in years is the boss of thirteen dogs in my kennels in Connecticut.  And a real boss he is.  He rides around gleefully in the keepers car, barking away, telling the other dogs where to head in.

Time and time again a cheerful dog like Pat has lifted me out of discouragement, set me on my feet, and given me a fresh look at things.

Pat, her favorite model, can roll over and dance with paws pointed to the sky.  He can stand in a stately pose and address a solemn meeting of dogs.  And like any good dog with a sense of humor, he can laugh with unaffected glee.  But down at heart Pat is a wistful dog.  Once long ago in his wanderings he met somewhere a little girl who loved and fed him and then disappeared from his horizon forever.  Perennially in the spring he remembers his lost mistress and goes off on a long search for her.  But his quest always ends in the comforting lap of Diana Thorne, who knows him and understands. 

It is not strange that in "Laugh Clown, Laugh," showing Pat in one of those gay moods behind which there lurks the wistfulness of dogdom, she has caught a universal quality.

Saturday Night

December 28, 1929

Authored and Illustrated by Diana Thorne:

101 Favorite Animals and Birds

A Boy and His Dog

Animal Picture Story Book

Animal Story Book

Around the World With Children and Dogs

Baby Animals

Cats and Cats Can

Cats and More Cats

Chips; The Story of a Cocker Spaniel

Diana Thorne's Dog-Basket

Diana Thorne's Dogs

Dog Stories Told by Boys and Girls

Dogs; Paintings and Stories

Drawing Dogs

Farm Animals

Farm Friends; Diana Thorne's Animal Book

How To Draw the Dog

Kiki the Kitten

Our Dogs

Peter the Goat

Puppies

Puppy Stories

Major and the Kitten

Mitzi

Polo

Roughy; The Dog Who Ran Away

Tails Up

The Dog Book

The Human Comedy

Tommy's Animal Friends

Tumbling Pell-Mell Right Onto Our Dinner Table

Wild Animals

Your Dogs and Mine 

Illustrated by Diana Thorne:

ABC of Dogs

A Boy and a Dog

A Mile of Freedom

Animal Book

AWOL Musters Out

AWOL the Courier

AWOL the Rajah

Baby Animal Stories

Big Animals

Bridle-Wise

Cats in Prose and Verse

Doctor; The Puppy Who Learned

Escape From the Icecap

Famous Dog Stories

Glover's Dog Book

Igloo

Little Cat Lost

Little Fellow

Long Lash

Major and the Kitten

Mrs. Silk

Muggins

Muskwa the Trail Maker

Nine Lives; A Cat of London in Peace & War

Nothing But Dogs

On the Farm With Bob & Nancy

Pepito the Colt

Pie Face

Private Pepper

Private Pepper Comes Home

Private Pepper of Dogs for Defense

Puppy Stories

Rag's Day

Real Tales of Real Dogs

Religion and Health

Renni the Rescuer

Rrou

Shep and Doctor

Shep and the Baby

Short Leash

The Antique Cat

The Big Dog and the Very Little Cat

The Dog; Man's Best Friend

The Dog That Came True

The Little Fellow

Tipi Sings

True Dog Stories

Two Against the North

Who Goes to the Wood

Wild Animals As I Know Them

Yank in Africa

Yank in France

Yank in Sicily

"Her name on a book for children assures perfection of artistry and appeal"

 John C. Winston Publishers

Diana Thorne freely donated her time and artwork to benefit organizations aiding homeless dogs such as the New York City Tailwagger Club, the Animal Protection League, and the New England Anti-Vivisection Society.