Draft:Gwyneth Mamlok

• Comment: Entire sections are unsourced. External links should also be removed or converted to inline citations where appropriate. Greenman (talk) 11:44, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

• Comment:

1. Career -Lemonaka 15:46, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

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Gwyneth Mamlok (9 January 1925 - 31 July 2014) was a South African-born British graphic designer, illustrator and author during the 1950s, '60s and '70s. During that time she worked extensively for several well-known publishers. She illustrated a wide range of children's books, including the ‘Candy’ series, for which she also wrote the text.

Career

After graduating, Mamlok worked in graphic design in the early 1950s in Johannesburg.

Mamlok produced most of her commercial illustrative and graphic design work while living in Greenwich, south-east London. These included the 'Candy’ series of books, published between 1965 and 1966, and other children's storybooks. The characters in the Candy series were based on Mamlok's young son and daughter and the family dog, a beagle. Candy and the Pony featured in an episode of the BBC children's programme Play School, while children's author Lauren Child, writing in The Times, described Candy and the Rocking Horse as her "favourite Christmas picture book of all."

In addition to producing illustrations for children's books, tea towels, nursery rhyme posters and greetings cards, in 1961 she produced a poster used by British Railways, Southern Region.

In the 1970s, Mamlok started to move away from graphic design toward painting in oils and watercolours, favouring portraits, landscapes and still life. She exhibited a work called ‘Seated Nude’ in the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition in 1978, credited as Mrs G. L. Parker of 22 Calverley Park, Tunbridge Wells.

Personal Life

Gwyneth Leaver Mamlok (née Parker) was born in Pretoria, South Africa, to parents John and Eliza Parker (née McCreath).

Educated at St Mary's Diocesan School for Girls in Pretoria, Mamlok went on to study fine art at the University of Natal.

In 1947 Gwyneth married Rolf Mamlok in Pretoria, and their son was born in 1949. In 1955, the couple and their son moved to St John's Wood, London, and their daughter was born the following year. In 1960 the family relocated to Greenwich, and later to East Sussex, then Tunbridge Wells.

Mamlok spent her later years in Pretoria, South Africa. In 2010 she returned to live near family in Barnard Castle, north-east England, and died in 2014.

Gwyneth Mamlok is survived by her son and daughter.

Selected Publications

The Magic Carpet series:

• Magic Carpet to Animal Rhyme Land (1961)
• Magic Carpet to Nursery Rhyme Land (1961)
• Magic Carpet to Pudding-Pie Land (1962)
• Magic Carpet to Story-Rhyme Land (1962)

The Candy series:

• Candy and Peppermint (1965)
• Candy and the Rocking Horse (1965)
• Candy and Ginger (1965)
• Candy and the Golden Eagle (1965)
• Candy in the Tower (1966)
• Candy and the Pony (1966)

Individual Titles:

• On Your Toes, Susie! (1960) (written by Jane Andrews and Lee Wyndham)
• Flannelfeet (1961) (written by Lilias Edwards)
• Rabbit and Reddy and their new Consul Cortina (1962)
• Left-Handed Tumfy (1962) (written by Jane Shaw)
• The Little Lost Girl (1963)
• Betsy's Adventures (1963)
• 366 Goodnight Stories (1963) (with Esme Eve, Jill Franksen, Porter-G)
• Peter and Jane in the Garden (1964)
• Jenny, from Ireland (1965) (written by Arthur Waterhouse)
• Mr. Punch in Bubble Land (1966) (written by William Hollingsworth Wood)
• The Sun Shone on the Elephant (1967)
• Kate and Katie-Doll (1969)