Cecil Percival attended Sydney High School, and was subsequently employed as a high-school teacher by the NSW Department of Education. He joined the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in October 1915, and served as a Mechanical Transport Driver in France.
Reassigned to the Australian War Records Section (London) as an artist, Percival sketched and painted scenes of Western Front battlefields. He also contributed material to Aussie: The Australian Soldier's Magazine and had a cartoon published in the London Punch magazine.
Returning to Australia, Percival became a leading cartoonist with The Bulletin (ca.1924-1932) and illustrated short stories for The Australian Woman's Mirror throughout the 1920s.
Commencing in the early 1940s, Percival illustrated a wide variety of books for the Currawong Publishing Company, including humorous novels by G.C. Bleeck (q.v.: see Rats, Ruses and Raggles), collections of verse (see The Digger's Hat and Other Verses), and children's story books (see The Remarkable Ramblings of Rupert and Rita). Percival also drew numerous covers for the company's range of crime, science-fiction, and western 'pulp' novels, which, unlike his other work for Currawong, were left unsigned -- a telling reflection, perhaps, of their status as 'lowbrow' literature.
