Until the last months of 2010, Tom Lubbock, who has died aged 53, was mainly known for his work as the chief art critic of the Independent. Two events changed and broadened that public profile. The first was the publication, in the Observer, of When Words Failed Me, his long, painful but at times strangely beautiful memoir of two years' suffering from the brain tumour that was slowly killing him, and which eventually robbed him of the power to write or speak. But it was more than just a fine writer's eloquent lament for the tragic loss of eloquence: it was a prose poem about language and mortality.

Just a few weeks after this, the Victoria Miro Gallery, London, mounted an exhibition of the collages that Tom had made for the Saturday editions of the Independent between 1999 and 2004. It was widely and warmly reviewed, notably by the Turner prizewinner Mark Wallinger, who praised the way in which these "exquisitely crafted" pieces "addressed the world in many different registers – sardonic, caustic, erudite and celebratory, with instinct, intelligence and wit". The exhibition announced to the world something that Tom's friends had long known: Lubbock the art critic was also Lubbock the artist.

When I first met him, more than 30 years ago, he was Lubbock the cartoonist. It seemed as if within days of arrival at Cambridge University – he read philosophy and English at Corpus Christi College – he was adorning the pages of student magazines with ferocious daubs and scatological caricatures.

In those days, before he grew the trademark beard that gave him the air of a 19th-century Russian anarchist, his face was like that of a cherub who had done a sneaky deal with the devil. He tended to dress in odd headgear and old formal suits – part scruff, part dandy – and his fingers were perpetually stained with ink. He was charming, if a bit frightening and had the most infectious laugh I had ever heard: a kind of sustained bronchial explosion. When someone uses the word "glee", I can see the boyish Tom, grinning hugely (he had terrible teeth), blue eyes wide open as he thrilled to some fresh joke or conceit, body convulsed, almost breathless with mirth. He was a superb mimic, too.

Tom was a serious student, busy laying the foundations for what became a formidable erudition, but he threw himself into all manner of other activities, including journalism (he edited an edition of Granta, in its old incarnation), student theatre, and a series of elaborate pranks that are probably best left unrecorded. It was said that whenever the Corpus porters discovered some new Dada-style atrocity, the cry would go up: "Where's Lubbock?"

One college contemporary, who was in the habit of arranging his loose change in neat piles on the mantelpiece, recalls how Tom used to love knocking them over in pure relish of chaos. Another remembers going to Tom's room for the first time and finding a note pinned to the door by a hunting knife: "You will die, Lubbock", it read. He did not seem greatly perturbed.

After graduation, Tom moved to London and began to scrabble around in the world of newspapers and magazines. His family was rather grand – Liberal politician Sir John Lubbock was an ancestor; so was the distinguished literary critic Percy Lubbock – and he had been to Eton. But there was no money to underwrite a life of scholarly ease, so, like most of his college peers, he learned to survive on his wits. He was theatre editor of the exceptionally short-lived magazine Bad News, and a jack of many trades for Richard Branson's Event listings magazine; and he produced lots of illustrations, often in collage form. Gradually, his reputation as a writer of uncommon talent became recognised, and his byline became more frequent.

His career gathered momentum in 1985, when was taken on by the producer Tom Sutcliffe as a regular contributor to BBC Radio 3's arts programme New Premises, for which he wrote both serious essays – his debut piece was a searching appreciation of George Stubbs's equestrian paintings – and spoofs or satires. One of these was a cod-documentary about a Thatcherite agit-prop theatre company, which toured banks and wine bars and gentleman's clubs with such shows as Piss on the Fire, Jack, My Toast's Done. His collage-cartoons began to appear in the Mail on Sunday, and then the Observer, and he designed the opening credits for the Channel 4 television programme A Week in Politics.

Tom also appeared on TV himself, as a contributor to BBC2's The Late Show in its early days. In collaboration with the director Roger Parsons, he also wrote an innovative six-part comedy series for BBC2, The Wolvis Family (1991). As its fans have pointed out, there were elements of this comedy that anticipated both The Royle Family (six characters confined to a single room) and The Office (a deadpan, apparently earnest approach to its characters' absurdities). Wolvis bombed in the ratings, but fared surprisingly well in Australia. Perhaps its best audience was Tom himself, who sat in the studio control room all but exploding with delight, until he had to be thrown out.

Meanwhile, he worked as a radio reviewer for the Independent and then the Observer, and wrote many book reviews. Tom was exceptionally well-informed in several areas – literature, music, philosophy – and as a book reviewer, he could turn his hand to almost anything editors asked of him, but it was becoming increasingly clear that his mind was at its most forceful and innovative when he thinking about the visual arts. He wrote long essays for the journal Modern Painters between 1990 and 2002, and won the Hawthorden prize for art criticism in 1993.

His full-time work as a reviewer and essayist for the Independent began in 1997. Apart from his keen eye and his wide range of reference, Tom's virtues included bracing clarity (he never used art-speak or any other kind of higher waffle), utter honesty (he was never intimidated by reputations), and originality (even if you thought you knew his tastes, he could surprise you). He could also be howlingly funny. His essay about conceptual art, based on various things you might do with a toaster, should be mounted in every modern art gallery as a contribution to public sanity.

When not engaged in journalism or family life – he married the artist Marion Coutts in 2001; their son, Eugene, is three years old – Tom worked at more substantial projects. He wrote major catalogue essays on Goya and Ian Hamilton Finlay, and monographs on Thomas Bewick and Carol Rhodes. A collection of essays from his popular Independent series Great Works will be published this year, and there are three manuscripts of completed books: one on Bad Art, one on the English graphic tradition, and The Donkey's Head, on 17th-century painting. His friends also hope that the full-length version of When Words Failed Me will become a book soon.

The last word should go to Tom: they are the last words of that essay.

The final thing. The illiterate. The dumb.

Speech?

Quiet but still something?

Noises?

Nothing?

My body. My tree.

After that it becomes simply the world.

• Thomas Nevile Lubbock, critic and illustrator, born 28 December 1957; died 9 January 2011