Arthur Horner was born in Malvern, Victoria, and attended Sydney High School and the National Art School. While a student, he wrote and acted in radio plays. He drew regularly for the Bulletin, creating the cartoon series Andy, before joining the staff of Smith's Weekly, where he assisted on the Dad and Dave strip. After serving in New Guinea and Borneo during the war, he travelled to England to study at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London. He worked as a freelance political cartoonist for several Fleet Street papers before introducing his Colonel Pewter cartoon strip in 1952. The strip continued in the Daily Mail and the Guardian, syndicated in full to the Melbourne Age, until Horner retired it in 1970. He worked for Punch, Private Eye and the Times before returning to Melbourne in 1976 to make theatre drawings, political and social cartoons for the Age.
