Peter Biegel

Jane Badger Books

Peter Biegel

Authored by:

Booted and Spurred - An Anthology of Riding
A & C Black, 1949

Peter Biegel’s Racing Pictures
Michael Joseph, 1983

Pony Stories Illustrated by Peter Biegel:

Shirley Faulkner Horne: Bred in the Bone
H F & G Witherby, 1938

Shirley Faulkner-Horne: Pat and Her Polo Pony
Country Life, 1939

Riding with the Kindles (with Ess, E)

HFG Witherby, 1941

Shirley Faulkner-Horne: Parachute Silk
H F & G Witherby, 1944 (illustrations also by Haz)

Shirley Faulkner-Horne: Mexican Saddle
H F & G Witherby, 1946

Shirley Faulkner-Horne: Green Trail
H F & G Witherby, 1947

John Thorburn, Hildebrand (reprint)
Collins, 1949

John Ivester Lloyd: Riders of the Heath
Country Life, 1951

Hilary Fitzgerald: The Home Farm

A & C Black, 1952

Kathleen Herald ( K M Peyton) Crab the Roan
A & C Black, 1953

Veronica Westlake: The Ten Pound Pony
Blackie, 1953

Shirley Faulkner-Horne: White Poles
H F & G Witherby, 1954

Rosemary Griffin: Cheers for the Ponies

Blackie, London, 1954,

Shirley Faulkner-Horne: Look Before You Leap
H F & G Witherby, 1955

Mona Sandler: Riding with Simon (cover only)

Country Life, 1955

Hilary Fitzgerald: Far Away Farm

A & C Black, 1957

Jo Packer: No Pony Like Pepper
Herbert Jenkins, 1957

Jo Packer: Gymkhana Trek
Herbert Jenkins, 1959

Ivor Herbert: Point to Point (Brockhampton 1964)

Reprinted as Longacre, World’s Work, 1978 - cover illustration Ian Robertson

Marjorie Reynolds: Dark Horse Barnaby

Macmillan, New York, 1967

CCL Browne: The Red Horse
Stephen Green Press, Brattleboro, 1967

Thomas Ivester Lloyd: Come on Young Riders!

Moss Bros, undated, pamphlet. [check]

Other Equine titles illustrated by Peter Biegel

Mrs Victor Hurst MHF: Ponies and Riders
Collins, 1948 (cover)

Enid Blyton: Six Cousins at Mistletoe Farm
Evans, 1948

Henry Tegner: Across the Hills and Far Away (Being the Account of a Cross Country Ride)

Hutchinson & Co, 1961

Hon Rothwell Willoughby: Come and Hunt
Museum Press, 1952

Wilson Stephens: Windsor 1955 - A Background to the Three Day European Horse Trials

Moss Bross, 1955 (pamphlet, 32pp.)

W E Lyon: Youth in the Saddle
Collins, 1955

Henry Tegner: The Old Man Hunts

Hutchinson & Co, 1959

David Brock: Privately Trained

H F & G Witherby, 1946

David Brock: The Young Fox Hunter

Adam & Charles Black, 1951

Guy Wheeler: The Year Round

Gentry Books, 1971

Anne, Countess of Feversham: Strange Stories of the Chase

Bles, 1972

John Foote: The Look of Eagles

J A Allen, 1969

Peter Biegel, (1913-1988), was a pupil of Lionel Edwards, and also studied with Lucy Kemp-Welch. His Edwards influences are easy to see, The Ten Pound Pony being particularly Edwards-esque, but still a lovely illustration in its own right. Biegel met Lionel Edwards by chance on a train journey, and spent a year studying with him. He was Lionel Edwards’ only pupil.

Peter Biegel did not start studying art as a teenager: after he left Downside School, he worked for five years with his father in the City. Deciding that that life was not for him, he left to study art seriously, joining Lucy Kemp-Welch’s school in 1938. He very soon succeeded in selling his work, and started a long association with Shirley Faulkner Horne and her pony books, almost all of which he illustrated. The first of these was Bred in the Bone, published in 1938, followed by Pat and her Polo Pony in 1939. The war interrupted his studies and paid work, though he did illustrate Shirley Faulkner Horne’s Parachute Silk when home on leave. This period of leave might have occurred when he was invalided home after being wounded in Normandy in 1944.

After the end of the war, Biegel resumed his studies at Bournemouth School of Art, before meeting Lionel Edwards, and a career in sporting art. Hunting was in his blood: his Dutch father hunted, and was known as The Flying Dutchman. Biegel painted many hunts including the Fitzwilliam and the South Dorset, as well as sporting events such as the Grand National.

Finding the books: Peter Biegel’s Racing Pictures is very expensive indeed; Booted and Spurred is much more reasonably priced. Of the books illustrated but not written by Peter Biegel, their price depends on how sought after the author is, and the rarity of the book. Crab the Roan, by Kathleen Herald (K M Peyton) is therefore very expensive. Hildebrand and No Pony Like Pepper are also pricey, The Ten Pound Pony, Riding with Simon and the Faulkner Hornes are becoming more expensive. Gymkhana Trek, Faraway Farm, Longacre and Ponies and Riders are all reasonably priced.