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 and committed to New York City's Belleville Hospital
in September 1962. Thorne died in July 1963.