John Loftus Leigh-Pemberton was born in Chelsea, London, England on 18 October 1911 and studied at Heatherley's School of Fine Art in London. He subsequently worked as a painter, illustrator and commercial artist. He also taught painting and composition at Heatherley's School of Fine Art at Heatherley's School of Fine Art. Among books he illustrated were A Concise Encyclopaedia of Gastronomy by André L. Simon (1952); The Shell Guide to Wild Life by Geoffrey Edward Harvey Grigson (1959); and he Ladybird Book of Garden Flowers by Brian Seymour Vesey Fitzgerald (1960). He was commissioned to paint large decorative schemes for ships. He exhibited at the New English Art Club, Royal Academy, National Society of Painters, Sculptors & Printmakers, and Royal Institute of Oil Painters in London; and at the Royal Cambrian Academy in Conwy, Wales.