ORIGINAL artwork and previously unseen sketches by the illustrator Posy Simmonds are on show at the Mercer Gallery in Harrogate in the first exhibition of her work ever mounted in North Yorkshire.

The exhibition offers a rare chance to see more than 50 works including drawings, illustrations and works on special loan from the artist and The Guardian news and media archive.

Simmonds is a writer as well as an illustrator. She is popular across the board for her witty cartoons about the politically correct Webber family in The Guardian, children’s books featuring such characters as Fred, the Elvis impersonator cat, and her graphic novels, Gemma Bovery, Posy’s take on Flaubert’s classic novel and Tamara Drewe based on Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd, which was a 2010 movie hit starring Gemma Arterton.

The exhibition includes work ranging from Posy’s schoolgirl cartoon portfolio, including a design for her own magazine Gurls.

Mischievous to the point of wicked in her drawings, teenage Posy was often in trouble at school for such artistic ventures as a page of drawings headed How To Make Love.

Jane Sellars, curator, said: "I am thrilled that Posy Simmonds is exhibiting at the Mercer. I have always been a big fan of her work, from Guardian comic strips in the 1980s poking fun at the middle classes to the marvellous books she wrote for children and then of course the graphic novels.

"There has never been a Posy Simmonds show in North Yorkshire before and our ambition is that the Mercer exhibition will have everybody laughing out loud in the gallery. It will bring Posy a lot of new fans."

Among original drawings created for The Guardian, one strip follows the adventures of the Silent Three of St Botolph’s School for Girls – Trish, Jo and Wendy – who continue the secret society they set up at school into married life. The story of the exploding Sandringham Tartlets is just one of the mysteries they set out to solve.

A 1989 cartoon entitled The Common Market follows in the path of two women who cast scorn on their local market in loud patronising voices: "Honestly, shopping in England’s just a soul-destroying chore… whereas, in France, I LOVE it!"

Simmonds is a genius at bringing art and writing together. She is acutely observant of people, their behaviours, language and appearance and an artist with a brilliant understanding of modern British culture, the perfect visual commentator on social class.

The Mercer Art Gallery is at Swan Road in Harrogate and admission to the exhibition is free. It continues until September 9.