Terry Hirst

Terry Hirst (1932–2015), was a British-Kenyan cartoonist and one of the leading figures in Africa's post-independence "golden age" of art and scholarship from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s which saw a flowering of work in the arts, cinema and the academic world. But it never occurred to him to be a cartoonist. He wanted to be an artist.

To the disappointment of his headmaster, Hirst turned down the opportunity to go to Oxford University and chose instead to take up a Fine Art course at the Brighton College of Art. After he graduated he was soon appointed the Head of the Art Department at one of the largest comprehensive schools in Nottingham.

While teaching in Nottingham, Hirst stumbled upon a newspaper advertisement for art teachers willing to teach in Africa. The choice was between Ghana and Kenya. Fueled by a sense of adventure, Hirst left England in 1965 to assume a teaching position at The Kenya High School in Nairobi. Part of the reason he took up the position in Kenya, Hirst says, was because of a returning settler who had told him about what a "terrible time" he had had in Kenya. He had given Hirst a copy of Jomo Kenyatta's Facing Mount Kenya to show him what he had been through, but when Hirst read the book he says it "blew my mind...! It was about, not ways of having but ways of being and I couldn't even tell him that I loved it!"

Hirst's decision to go to Kenya rather than Ghana was also influenced by the fact that the Kenyan contract was for two years while the Ghanaian contract stipulated a five-year commitment. To Hirst, five years sounded like it was too long. Besides his teaching work, Hirst was also active in other areas of the art scene. He became a founding member of the Paa Ya Paa Art Gallery where he met with "some of the most creative minds of the ‘independence’ generation." He eventually contributed two one-man exhibitions of paintings at the Paa Ya Paa Gallery which both sold out.

Hirst did not draw anything from 2003 when his studio was accidentally flooded, destroying many valuable canvases. In his last years, he spent much of his time in his library reading and writing.