Charlie Mackesy

Charlie Mackesy (1962) is a British artist and author. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse has sold more than 2 million copies worldwide and was in the top ten for 55 weeks in the Sunday Times Bestsellers List. His book was chosen as the Waterstones Book of the Year 2019 and was on the shortlist for the British Book Awards in 2020. Mackesy grew up in Northumberland in the north of England and went to a boarding school when he was seven. He lives in London and in Suffolk, where, together with his sister, he cares for his mother. He has lived and painted in South-Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the United States. Mackesy was a cartoonist for The Spectator and an illustrator for Oxford University Press. He also collaborated with Richard Curtis for Comic Relief, a UK charity promoting a just world free from poverty. He is a former atheist who 'found Jesus.’ He sees his work as a way to ‘present God to the people he loves.' Many of his paintings have a religious theme. He was selected to work on the Unity Series-project of Nelson Mandela, whereby he gave renewed form to the drawings that Mandela had made. Mackesy regularly speaks at Holy Trinity Brompton Church in London, where Alpha Courses started and developed.