Harry Julius

Montage by Judy Leech. Image on front page: Oscar Asche in Kismetby Alick P.F. Ritchie. National Library of Australia, Canberra.

By the beginningof the twentieth century live theatre in Australia was at the height of its popularity and attendances at both ‘cultured’ and ‘popular’ theatre continued to expand. Both Sydney and Melbourne boasted several central city theatres as well as numerous vaudeville and variety halls. International theatre companies regularly performed in Australia and their principal stars added to the popularity of the productions.

World War I had an initial impact on theatre attendance, but numbers soon returned, perhaps as a distraction from the European conflict, and Australian audiences continued to enjoy a wide range of entertainment. More than 350 different plays were staged in Melbourne alone during the war years.¹

Newspapers, leading magazines and journals responded to their readers’ passion for the theatre and gave it considerable coverage with reviews and commentary and most had dedicated ‘theatre critics’ on the payroll. Increasingly, and of present interest, this theatre copy was punctuated with illustrations by a raft of ‘black and white’ artists who plied their craft to portray theatrical personnel, often in unflattering, humorous caricatures and cartoons.

While a few of the artists had more or less regular arrangements with the press, for most their input to the theatrical theme was intermittent and only one aspect of their freelance work in a highly competitive profession. Without question, these artists were fortunate to be working in a time when cartooning and caricatures came of age and their output was prolific.

No newspaper or magazine in Australia in the early 1900s did more to encourage black and white artists than the Bulletin. It employed some of the finest artists of the time, including Will Dyson, Harry Julius, Hal Gye, Jim Bancks, D.H. Souter, Tom Glover and Mervyn Skipper. The Bulletin was where many cartoonists made their start. However, the Bulletin was not alone in nurturing the growing number of freelance black and white artists; Smith’s Weekly, Lone Hand, Sydney Sportsman, Bookfellow, Gadfly, Clarion, and Critic were some of the publications that regularly printed cartoons and caricatures.

Unlike other sections of a newspaper or magazine where illustrations were usually editorially driven, it is probably fair to say that as these artists were adding pictorial comment to written theatrical reviews—usually an actor or a scene—many of these theatrical caricatures and cartoons were included without editorial direction; the ‘black and whiters’ enjoyed a large degree of artistic independence.

There are too many artists in the black and white school of cartoonists and caricaturists to do them all justice, as such the following represent this writer’s personal favourites.

Many would agree that Australia’s greatest caricaturist was the exceptionally gifted Will Dyson (1880–1938). Arguable, some of Dyson’s best work were the numerous theatrical caricatures he drew for the Bulletin around 1904–10 as the magazine’s theatre cartoonist.

Dyson was acclaimed for the penetrating force of his cartoons and caricatures and saw the pretentious theatre personnel as a target for his acerbic penmanship; although it was once said that while he did not often attack the ladies with his pointed crow quill, he did the ‘wicked deed’ now and again.²

A ‘wicked deed’ perhaps, was Dyson’s 1908 sketch of Lady Dunscombe (Nellie Mortyne) in Jim the Penmanat the Theatre Royal Melbourne, where the lady, a decorative titled visitor of some importance, is portrayed with a rather unflattering figure. More sensitive was Dyson’s portrayal of Arthur Greenaway as the hunched and doddery King Louis XI in the musical The Vagabond King, which was produced by J.C. Williamson Ltd. in spectacular style during 1928–1929.

Will Dyson: A rather unflattering portrait of Nellie Mortyne as Lady Dunscombe in Jim the Penman at the Theatre Royal, Melbourne

Bulletin (Sydney), 17 December 1908, p.9

Will Dyson: Arthur Greenaway as Louis XI in the musical The Vagabond King, 1928

National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Other Dyson works include that of actor Julius Knight playing Sir Percy Blakeney in The Scarlet Pimpernel, performed at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Melbourne—‘a hero whose tigerish nonchalance gives him the aspects of a drugged prig …’—a description which is perfectly captured by Dyson’s caricature.

Another notable caricature shows ‘Norman: The bold bad man of the Bland Holt Co.’ Albert Norman was a leading actor with the Bland Holt Co. for many years and was well known for playing sinister characters. In fact, one review described him thus: Norman ‘is such a villain as he has been many times before, and the sardonic smile of sin on his countenance is the same old smile’.³ Again, a description well captured by Dyson.

A rare survivor, the original artwork for Leave It to Jane, published in Table Talk, demonstrates the use of sepia wash to achieve the tonal contrasts in the published cartoon, and the application of white touch-up to conceal changes.

Will Dyson: ‘Julius Knight in The Scarlet Pimpernel’

Bulletin (Sydney), 5 November 1908, p.9

Will Dyson: ‘Norman: The bold bad man of the Bland Holt Co.’

Bulletin (Sydney), 19 December 1907, p.8

Will Dyson: Original artwork for Leave It to Jane which was published in Table Talk (Melbourne),
17 June 1926, p.27

National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Harry Julius(1885–1938) was another fine caricaturist of the period as well as a most versatile artist—among many pursuits, he was a newspaper cartoonist, writer and illustrator, advertising executive and film animator. But it is his theatrical caricatures for which he is best known—stageland appealed to him as a splendid site for the caricaturist. Julius once remarked that for years he’d had opera glasses on actors with evil intent and it was melodrama and tragic grand opera, not placid modern plays, which moved him as a pictorial satirist.⁴

From around 1907, Julius consistently provided magazines, particularly the Bulletin, with humorous caricatures of performers from across the whole spectrum of the theatre from grand opera to vaudeville and pantomime; his output was prodigious. Julius had the skill of getting fine caricatures in a few lines with unmistakeable portraiture.⁵

There is a wonderful record of some 250 of Julius’ early theatrical caricatures (many of which had appeared in the Bulletin) of most of the prominent stars of the period presented in Theatrical Caricatures, published by the NSW Bookstall Co. in 1912. The book also includes stories on the theatre celebrities by Claude McKay. To view these pen and ink sketches in one collection gives an appreciation of how they would have ‘coloured’ the reviews of current and coming shows which the Bulletin ran in its ‘Sundry Shows’ pages.

One example of Julius’ caricatures includes Annette Kellerman in the glass tank from the Annette Kellerman Show at the Sydney Tivoli. Kellerman was an Australian long-distance swimmer, aquatic and vaudeville performer. Of her Tivoli show it was said: ‘the versatile mermaid has added submarine evolutions, toe dancing and wire walking to an endearing personality, and between them have captured the multitude.’⁶

Another cartoon that appears in the Bulletin illustrates a scene from the light musical comedy High Jinks, produced by J.C. Williamson at Her Majesty's in Sydney in 1915. The Bulletin review, on the same page as the cartoon, noted ‘the fair and willowy Gertrude Glyn as usual looms up in one or two gowns which stun the stalls... C.H. Workman one of the comedians puts up a good plainclothes performance’.

Harry Julius: ‘Annette Kellerman in the glass tank’

Bulletin (Sydney), 16 June 1921, p.42

Harry Julius: ‘High Jinks: Dance Chi-Chi (Gertrude Glyn) and the discoverer of the “High Jinks” perfume (C.H. Workman)’

Bulletin (Sydney), 11 February 1915, p.8

In another, John Coates the English tenor appears as Radames in Aida which played at Her Majesty’s, Sydney. In this caricature, Julius shows ‘John Coates going nobly to his doom, escorted by four stalwart Egyptians. Amneris (Edna Thornton) is grief-stricken’. Of Coates’ performance, the review said, it shows ‘what the portly Yorkshireman can do—when he chooses to exert himself’.⁷

Another cartoon shows a scene from Hamlet at the Sydney Criterion, where Hamlet (Walter Bentley) asks Horatio (W.S. Titheradge) and an inoffensive solder to swear an oath. According to the accompanying review, ‘Walter Bentley has a way of “beefing out” his lines on occasion that compels enthusiasm regardless of the exact meaning of the phrases beefed’.

Harry Julius: ‘Hamlet at the Sydney Cri: Hamlet (Walter Bentley) asks Horatio (W.S. Titheradge) and an inoffensive soldier to swear’

Bulletin (Sydney), 22 July 1909, p.8

Harry Julius: ‘Aida at Her Majesty’s, Sydney: John Coates going nobly to his doom, escorted by four stalwart Egyptians. Amneris (Edna Thornton) grief-stricken’

Bulletin (Sydney), 8 August 1912, p.10

Another prominent black and white artist whose caricatures regularly appeared in the Bulletin during this period was Jim Bancks(1889–1952). His work also featured in Melbourne Punch, Sydney Sun and Sunday Sun. Bancks fame was ensured in particular, with his comic ‘Us Fellows’ which evolved into Ginger Meggs.

Bancks works include Mr Pim Passes By at Sydney Criterion: Ashton Jarry as Mr Pim, ‘only just a passer-by’. Ashton Jarry first came to Australia in 1917 with Ada Reeve and since then performed in several Australian productions. One of his notable performances was as Mr Pim. Jarry also played Count Dracula in J.C. Williamson’s production of Dracula performed at the Sydney Theatre in June 1929.

Jim Bancks: ‘Mr Pim Passes By at Sydney Criterion: Ashton Jarry as Mr Pim, “only just a passer-by” ’

Bulletin (Sydney), 18 August 1921, p. 34

Jim Bancks: ‘Pianist Mischa Levitzki’

Bulletin (Sydney), 9 June 1921, p.14

Other notable caricatures include Mischa Levitzki, the Russian born American based concert pianist who at the Sydney Town Hall was described as ‘the young man with the strong forearms and rubber fingers’ (Bulletin, 9 June 1921), and Scandal at the Sydney Criterion (Bulletin, 26 May 1921) with Kenneth Brampton as Malcolm Fraser, the rejected lover and Maude Hannaford as the heroine, Beatrix Vanderdyke. Hannaford, described as a possessor of good looks, young and ambitious, had quickly become a star of the American stage with successful roles in Redemption and as the leading lady in The Jest.

Oh, Lady, Lady! was one of a number of sensational J. C. Williamson’s musical comedies of the 1920s. The leading lady, Dorothy Brunton was a hit as ‘Faintin’ Fanny a Peel-street pick-pocket; one review said, ‘The New Dot is as impish as the old one was coy and curly’. Her performance is complimented by an outstanding cast, including William Green as Hale Underwood, a man about town.

Jim Bancks: Two characters from the musical Oh, Lady, Lady! at the Theatre Royal, Sydney: William Green as Hale Underwood and Arthur Denton as the detective Cyril Townsley

Bulletin (Sydney), 8 September 1921, p.34 & 15 September 1921, p.36

Continuing with his depiction of stage actors, his 1921 portrait of George Gee in The Lilac Domino perfectly captures the gait of the rubber-legged dancer and comedian.

Of current ‘historical’ significance is Bancks’ cartoon ‘WHEN AT LAST SYDNEY THEATRE RESTRICTIONS ARE LIFTED: Montague Loveslush and his leading lady, Lulu De Vere, the stage’s smartest dressers, present themselves for re-employment’ (Bulletin, 15 May 1919).

This is Bancks’ take on the news on 15 May 1919 that Sydneysiders could go to the theatre again, with their masks off, after months of anti-influenza restrictions.

Jim Bancks: ‘The Lilac Domino at the Sydney Criterion: A goldfish movement by dancer George Gee’

Bulletin (Sydney), 7 April 1921, p.34

Jim Bancks: ‘WHEN AT LAST SYDNEY THEATRE RESTRICTIONS ARE LIFTED: Montague Loveslush and his leading lady, Lulu De Vere, the stage’s smartest dressers, present themselves for re-employment’

Bulletin (Sydney), 15 May 1919, p.36

Hal Gye (1888–1967) was another brilliant black and white artist, principally working in the Bulletin stable, who provided the magazine with theatrical and sporting caricatures and in 1910 replaced Will Dyson as the Bulletin’s theatre cartoonist. Gye drew for numerous other papers and magazines; caricatures of politicians for Melbourne Punch and sporting identities for the Judge, cartoons for the Australian Worker, Vanguard, Referee, Smith’s Weekly, Table Talk and the Sydney Arrow.

Examples of Gye’s Bulletin caricatures include Oscar Asche and Caleb Porter in Count Hannibal at the Melbourne Royal in 1910; the popular Scottish singer and entertainer Harry Lauder on the occasion of his first Australia tour; J.P. O’Neill in the melodrama No Mother to Guide Her at the Princess, 1913; and comedian W.S. Percy as the gaoler in Nightbirds, an adaptation of Die Fledermaus that played at Her Majesty’s in Melbourne during 1912.

Hal Gye: ‘Count Hannibal at Melbourne Royal: Caleb Porter as Father Pezelay [and] Oscar Asche as the Count’

Bulletin (Sydney), 27 January 1910, p.9

Hal Gye: ‘Harry Lauder, at Melbourne Princess’s’

Bulletin (Sydney), 7 May 1914, p.8

Hal Gye: ‘No Mother to Guide Her at Melbourne Princess’s: J.P. O’Neill as Bill Bunce, the bad’un (with a few of his hobbies)’

Bulletin (Sydney), 6 February 1913, p.11

Hal Gye: ‘Nightbirds at Her Majesty’s, Melbourne: W.S. Percy as the Black-Eyed Warder’

Bulletin (Sydney), 28 November 1912, p.10

Mervyn Skipper(1886–1958) became more prominent in the mid to late 1920s with his work often printed in the Bulletin and at one time he was the Melbourne cartoon correspondent for the magazine. Skipper left the Bulletin in 1933 to start his own magazine, the Pandemonium, which ran for 12 issues. Skipper later returned to the Bulletin as the art and drama critic and wrote extensively for Australian magazines including Lone Hand.

Some of his works include The Masquerader at Sydney Royal and The Truth About Blayds, a comedy by A.A. Milne at the Criterion.

Mervyn Skipper: ‘The Masquerader at Sydney Royal: Winnington Barnes as the faithful Brock, and Oliver Bainbridge as Bobby Blessington, a social hack’

Bulletin (Sydney), 10 September 1925, p.35

Mervyn Skipper: ‘The Truth About Blayds at the Sydney Criterion: Irene Vanbrugh and Janet Eccles return from burying a poet’

Bulletin (Sydney), 26 March 1925, p.35

D.H. Souter(1862–1935) had a 40-year association with the Bulletin, with his first cartoon appearing on 23 February 1895. His cartoons were fanciful and loosely described as ‘art nouveau’. Two examples from the Lone Hand magazine are shown below—‘Contralto Dramatique’ and ‘Prima Donna Assoluta.

D.H. Souter: ‘Contralto Dramatique’

Lone Hand (Sydney), 1 July 1907, p.257

D.H. Souter: ‘Prima Donna Assoluta’

Lone Hand (Sydney), 1 August 1907, p.412

Somewhat different in style was Souter’s cartoon announcing the musical comedy, Betty. The musical was produced by J.C. Williamson Ltd. and opened at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Sydney on 22 November 1924. Souter’s sketch shows Edith Drayson (Betty), Field Fisher (Duke of Crowborough), Alfred Frith (Lord Playne), Harold Pearce (Earl of Beverley), Reita Nugent (David Playne) and Harry Wotton (Hillier).

His skill as a black and white artist is also demonstrated by his portrait of Elsie Prince in her role of Judy in the Gershwin musical Lady Be Good, which opened at the St. James Theatre in Sydney on 30 July 1927. The original artwork is in the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

D.H. Souter: ‘Elsie Prince as Judy in Lady Be Good’, 1927

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

D.H. Souter: ‘First Night Impressions (by DHS)’ of Bettyat Her Majesty’s Theatre, Sydney

Country Life Stock and Station Journal (Sydney), 28 November 1924, p.10

Souter, himself, was involved in the theatre and his operetta, The Grey Kimona was staged in Adelaide in 1907. He was also involved with Alfred Hill’s Sydney Repertory Theatre Society.

Tom Glover (1891–1938) was a New Zealand cartoonist who came to Australia in the 1920s and joined the Bulletin in 1922 where his cartoons and caricatures of personalities stamped him as a talented black and white artist.⁸ Prior to this he was cartoonist for the New Zealand Truth and also drew for the Free Lance under the name ‘Tom Ellis’. In around 1925, Glover joined the staff of the Associated Newspapers Ltd. and remained there until his sudden death in 1938.

A good example of his work is his portrait of the theatrical producer George A. Highland, drawn in 1925. Highland came to Australia in 1917 and worked with J.C. Williamson Ltd. He produced Maid of the Mountains in 1921 and many other productions.

Another portrait by Glover was of Tom Clare, the British music hall singer and pianist best known for singing humorous songs. Clare performed in a vaudeville show at the Melbourne Tivoli where it was said he ‘was better when he was less grandfatherly’.⁹

Tom Glover: Theatrical producer George A. Highland, 1925

National Portrait Gallery, Canberra

Tom Glover: ‘Tom Clare, who purveys songs from the piano’

Bulletin (Sydney), 26 March 1925, p.35

In 1925 he captured a good likeness of Allan Wilkie as Malvolio in Twelfth Night. Wilkie and his wife, Frediswyde Hunter-Watts, arrived in Australia in 1914 and worked with Nellie Stewart’s and J.C. Williamson’s touring companies. In 1920, Wilkie established the Wilkie Shakespearean Company, which debuted at Melbourne’s Princess Theatre in September 1920 with Macbeth. The previous year, Glover captured a fine image of showman and cartoonist Bert Levy.

Tom Glover: ‘Twelfth Night at Melbourne Palace: Allan Malvolio Wilkie’

Bulletin (Sydney), 2 April 1925, p.35

Tom Glover: ‘Melbourne Tivoli: Bert Levy, artist, author, journalist, international vaudeville star and good Australian’

Bulletin (Sydney), 18 September 1924, p.35

Ambrose Dyson(1876–1913), another of the artistically talented Dyson family, was essentially a political cartoonist, but occasionally dabbled in theatrical cartoons.

In his cartoon ‘The Tempter’, Dyson combined political and theatrical commentary with a pointed reference on Ada Ward, a former actress who had returned to Australia after ‘finding God’. Ada Ward first performed in Melbourne in 1877 with some success, but after many years performing in London she sensationally left the stage in 1897 to train as a preacher. Ward returned to Australia in 1907 as an evangelist and addressed an audience at the Melbourne Wesley Church on ‘Can an Actress be a Christian’, where she denounced the immorality of the theatre and its ruination of young women.

True to the theatrical theme, another of Dyson’s cartoon was a New Year’s card for 1905 to his theatrical friend the actor manager Bland Holt.

Ambrose Dyson: ‘THE TEMPTER. Miss Ada Ward claims that the actress cannot be a Christian because of the terrible temptations that constantly assail her—AGE.
Dyson’s retort: True, every man in the world will admit that the pretty actress has to encounter fascinations and allurements of which her humdrum stay-at-home sisters can know nothing.’

Bulletin (Sydney), 9 May 1907, p.18.

Ambrose Dyson: New Year’s card to actor-manager Bland Holt, who is depicted tickling the ‘grim old world’ with his cane. Dated 1905.

State Library of Victoria, Melbourne

One of the lesser known Australian black and white cartoonists of the early 1900s is George Dunstan (1876–1946) who drew under the pen name ‘Zif’. Besides the general run of publications, Zif also contributed cartoons to the Sydney Sportsman and the Australian Worker and was chief cartoonist for the International Socialist Magazine. As one of his many attributes, Zif also took to the stage, regularly performing across Australia as a lightning sketch artist, often billed as ‘Chats in Charcoal’.

Illustrative of his style, Zif created a series of cartoons on ‘Suburban Drama’ for the Bulletin in September 1909. One was captioned, ‘East Lynne in the Suburbs’.

George Dunstan (Zif): ‘East Lynne in the Suburbs: Barbara Hare: “Alas! Alas! Why did he pass me over for a baby-faced chit like that?”.’

Bulletin (Sydney), 9 September 1909, p.10

Harry Julius: ‘Zif: The well-known cartoonist, now appearing at the Melrose Theatre. He is the greatest “drawing” card in Australia’

Truth (Perth), 22 March 1913, p.11

Around 1910, Zif produced a series of coloured postcards for the New South Wales Bookstall Co., in their ‘Art Series’. One set of six cards, ‘Theatrical Travesties’ embodied caricatures of ‘theatre types’, a style which typified his work.

George Dunstan (Zif): ‘Theatrical Travesties: The Scalem Dramatic Coy.
LANDLORD: “I want your board money in advance.”
MANAGER: Have you no heart for these poor orphans?”
LANDLORD: Yes, I have a heart, but it takes cash in advance to touch it.”’

Courtesy of Gary Davies

George Dunstan (Zif): ‘Theatrical Travesties: Scene from East Lynne. Owing to circumstances the parts of “Little Willie” and “Francis Levison” had to be doubled.
LITTLE WILLIE: “Why do you cry Madame Vine. I’m not your Little Willie!”’

Courtesy of Gary Davies

Mick Paul(1888–1945), a Sydney cartoonist of the early twentieth century, contributed to the Bulletin, Lone Hand, Comic Australia, Lilley’s Magazine (cover designs) and the Australian Worker. Paul was well-known for his bohemian lifestyle, his socialist views and anti-conscription cartoons and was a foundation member of the Society of Australian Black and White Artists.

Paul’s cartoon, ‘TOO HOT’, offered a social comment on the influenza which devastated Australia around 1919, while ‘NATURALLY’ presents a feminist view on the prevailing gender imbalance in theatre life.

Mick Paul: TOO HOT—The Manager: “This influenza scare doesn’t seem to have made much difference to us—house full every night.” The Star: “No influenza germ could come within a mile of this show – they hate warmth.”

Bulletin (Sydney), 19 December 1918, p.30

Mick Paul: NATURALLY—Flo: “That beast of a stage manager has complained again about us talking on the stage. He wouldn’t do that if we were men.”

Bulletin (Sydney), 7 November 1918, p.30

Bert Levy(1871–1934) described as a clever black and white artist and showman, began his working life as an apprentice scenic artist at the Theatre Royal, Melbourne. A prolific creator, Levy was published in Melbourne Punch, the Mirror, Table Talk, drew cartoons and theatrical caricatures for the Bulletin, was the dramatic critic for the Bendigo Adventurer and cartoonist for the Age, Leader magazine. Levy travelled to America in the early 1900s where he worked for Weber and Fields Music Hall, then the Morning Telegraph while running vaudeville shows in New York.¹⁰

Examples of his work include ‘In a Vaudeville Green Room’, a cartoon which shows several performers waiting in a dedicated space—‘the green room’ before going on stage. Another is of Hugh Ward in The Emerald Isle. Ward was a major figure in Australian theatre as an actor and entrepreneur. He was one time managing director of J.C. Williamson Ltd. and after resigning from that position, formed Hugh J. Ward Theatres Ltd. in partnership with the Fuller brothers.

Bert Levy: ‘In a Vaudeville Green Room’

Lone Hand (Sydney), 1 February 1912, p.299

Bert Levy: ‘Hugh Ward in The Emerald Isle’

Bulletin (Sydney), 28 March 1903 p. 10

Bert Levy: Self-portrait, 1906: ‘As Bert Levy sees himself from the New York Morning Telegraph’

J. Willis Sayre Photograph Collection, University of Washington Libraries, Seattle, USA

By the 1920s, Smith’s Weekly had become the premiere source of cartoons in Australia and unlike other publications their cartoonists were on the pay role, not freelancers. To emphasise this and introduce their staff to the public, the magazine often presented cartoons as composite drawings where all artists contributed; the cartoonists and their characters appeared side by side.¹¹

A variation of the composite cartoon can be seen in the work of, Syd Miller(1901–1983), who joined Smith’s Weekly in 1919 and worked there for some 22 years as a cartoonist and film and stage reviewer.

Miller’s illustrations of ‘Sally in Our Majesty’s’ and ‘Six People Who Make The Flaw’ are examples of his style.

Syd Miller: ‘Sally in Our Majesty’s’, with (from left to right) Hugh Steyne, Gracie Laver, George Gee, Josie Melville (out of and in the kitchen), George Baker, George Lane

Smith’s Weekly (Sydney), 27 January 1923, p.12

Syd Miller: ‘Six People Who Make The Flaw—Mayne Lynton, Frank Harvey, Sheila Helpman, Emelie Pollini, Raymond Lawrence, Nancye Stewart’

Smith’s Weekly (Sydney), 10 February 1923, p. 12

Lance Driffield(1898–1943) was a newspaper and magazine cartoonist and illustrator during the 1920s and 30s, drawing under the pen name ‘Driff’. Driffield started his career as a process engraver and went on to work for the Sunday Times, Truth and Smith’s Weekly.

Typical of his work is the cartoon of Mother Goose which stared Roy Rene and Nat Phillips (‘Stiffy and Mo’), two of the most significant comedians of the period.

Lance Driffield: ‘Mother Goose at the Sydney Hippodrome: Stiffy and Mo try to discover what the Dame would like for supper’

Smith’s Weekly (Sydney), 13 January 1923, p.12

Ray Whiting: ‘Windsor, Edgar and Kellaway, three bright Musical Fellows at the Tivoli Circuit’

Smith’s Weekly (Sydney), 5 April 1924, p.12

Ray Whiting (1898–1975) contributed cartoons to Smith’s Weekly, Table Talk and the Bulletin in the 1920s and 30s and later sketched for the AIF ‘News’ when serving with the 9th Division Camouflage Training Unit in the Middle East during WW2. Arthur Streeton once said his cartoons display a fine decorative sense, good drawing and imagination. ‘Some of the works are weirdly grotesque, and yet they are wickedly like the objects caricatured.’¹²

These qualities are evident in his portrayal of Windsor, Edgar and Kellaway, a brilliant musical trio from the London Hippodrome, and Joe Brennan, Charles Heslop and particularly Oliver Peacock from Mother Goose. Peacock is an interesting figure. He had a long association with the Australian musical stage, playing support roles to Florence Young, Carrie Moore and Dorothy Brunton. Notably, in 1922, he was understudy to Oscar Asche when Asche took Cairo and Chu Chin Chow to New Zealand.

Ray Whiting: ‘Joe Brennan (Mother Goose) and Charles Heslop (Fitzrabbit) in Hugh Ward’s panto, Melbourne Palace’

Smith’s Weekly, 26 January 1924, p.12

Ray Whiting: ‘Mother Goose’s offsider at the Melbourne Palace—Oliver Peacock as Squire Hardflint’

Smith’s Weekly, 26 January 1924, p.12

Alec Sass (Sass) (c.1870–1922) drew for Melbourne Punch and its humorous page between 1896-1912, where he introduced the Sass girl, Sass policeman and Sass johnnie. After working at the New York Journal, Sass joined Smith’s Weekly in around 1921 as an artist and art editor. As art editor he was responsible for teaching staff artists to draw for reproduction on newsprint. Like other Smith’s artists, Sass also drew composite cartoons, a style which is well-illustrated in his cartoon ‘Fooling Around at Fuller’s Panto on a Hot Night’. Another portrait shows an exceedingly stout Oscar Asche in Cairo, which was playing at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Sydney.

Alec Sass: ‘Fooling Around at Fuller’s Panto on a Hot Night’

Smith’s Weekly (Sydney), 7 January 1922, p.10

Alec Sass: ‘Cairo: If Oscar gets any stouter we hope he gets transparent’

Smith’s Weekly (Sydney), 23 September 1922, p.12

Will Donald(1883–1959) was a pioneering cartoonist of the period who contributed to mainstream and socialist newspapers and magazines, including the Bulletin, Quit, Gadfly and the Critic. Donald was one of Australia’s early comic artists.

Examples of his work include a caricature of the Late F.H. Pollock, Lessee Theatre Royal Adelaide. Pollock was an actor and theatre entrepreneur. He acquired the lease of the Royal in 1900 from Wybert Reeve (English actor and impresario) but, following illness, Pollock appointed a manager in his stead. Pollock died in 1908. Interestingly, George Coppin was the first lessee of the theatre.

Another of Donald’s caricatures, published in the Sydney Sun during 1910, depicts Julius Knight and Reynolds Denniston in the romantic drama Henry of Navarre, set in seventeenth century Europe.

His signature profile style is also evident in his caricatures of Victor Loydall and Rupert Darrell in the pantomime Jack and Jill from the Sydney Sun; while his portraits of Oscar Asche and Lily Brayton in The Taming of the Shrew are rare pieces of original artwork.

Will Donald: A caricature of ‘The Late F.H. Pollock, Lessee Theatre Royal Adelaide’

Bulletin (Sydney), 19 November 1908, p.18

Will Donald: ‘Julius Knight as Henry of Navarre and Reynolds Denniston as his faithful watch dog’

Star(Sydney), 13 June 1910, p.7

Will Donald: ‘Victor Loydall as Perks’ and ‘Rupert Darrell as Baron Bounce’ in the pantomime Jack and Jillat the Theatre Royal in Sydney

Star (Sydney), 27 September 1909, p.2

Will Donald: ‘Oscar Asche as Petruchio’ and ‘Lily Brayton “Tamed”’ Drawn during Oscar Asche’s 1909 Sydney Shakespeare season at the Criterion.

National Library of Australia, Canberra

Tasmanian-born Alf Vincent(1874–1915) joined Melbourne Punch in 1895 and a year later he succeeded Tom Carrington as feature artist for the magazine. Vincent joined the Bulletin in 1898 and drew for the magazine until his death in 1915. His style of work was similar to that of Phil May (his mentor) for which he was often criticised by his contemporaries.

Outside the usual run of newspaper and magazine caricatures, Vincent did a fine piece of work in a theatrical souvenir, a pamphlet consisting of twelve sketches (some in colour) of performers in J.C. Williamson’s Comic Opera Co. production of San Toy which premiered on 21 December 1901 at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Melbourne. On the occasion of the fiftieth performance of the show on 8 February 1902, a portfolio of sketches was handed out to every lady visitor.

Alf Vincent: Carrie Moore in the title role of San Toy—“I’m not a littee Boy—I’m a Littee Girl.’ From San Toy: Sketches by Alf Vincent.

State Library of Victoria, Melbourne.

Alf Vincent: Grace Palotta as ‘Dudley’. From San Toy: Sketches by Alf Vincent.

State Library of Victoria, Melbourne

Alf Vincent: ‘Poppy gives Fo Hop a piece of her mind.’ From San Toy: Sketches by Alf Vincent.

State Library of Victoria, Melbourne

Donald MacDonald (Pas)(1862–1945) was one of the finest caricaturists of the early 20th century to freelance his work to several magazines and newspapers in Australia and New Zealand. The scope of his work was not restricted to a particular theme, but he was particularly noted for his caricatures of theatre personnel.

For Sydney Sportsman he contributed studies of well-known theatrical personalities Bland Holt and Julius Grant. Actor-manager Bland Holt, nicknamed the ‘King of Melodrama’, was known for his elaborate stagings of Drury Lane melodramas which he produced at the Lyceum Theatre in Sydney and Theatre Royal in Melbourne. Julius Grant established theatrical enterprises with Bert Bailey and was lessee of King’s Theatre for 15 years. He produced several shows including the record breaking On Our Selection. He also introduced Melbourne audiences to stars such as Oscar Asche and Lily Brayton.

In response to the composer and music teacher Signor Roberto Hazon receiving an address and testimonial from His Excellency the Governor on the occasion of his farewell performance in Sydney, Pas provided a likeness for Sydney Sportsman.

During the 1920s, for Everyone’s, he contributed a sketch of Miss Aylet, ‘Australia’s only trap drummer’ who was performing at Sydney’s Crystal Palace.

Donald MacDonald (Pas): Signor Hazon on the occasion of his farewell to Sydney

Sydney Sportsman, 25 September 1907, p.2

Donald MacDonald (Pas): ‘Julius Grant (Business Manager, Criterion Theatre)’

Sydney Sportsman, 4 December 1907, p.2

Donald MacDonald (Pas): ‘Bland Holt etcetera’, drawn while Holt was performing in the melodrama Women and Wine at the Theatre Royal

Sydney Sportsman,15 March 1905, p.2

Donald MacDonald (Pas): ‘Miss Aylet, Australia’s only trap drummer at the Crystal Palace, Sydney’

Everyone’s (Sydney), 16 July 1924, p.18

Tom Ferry (1891–1954) started his working life as an apprentice with John Sands Ltd. doing lithographic work and before qualifying, he was seconded to work for the Sun newspaper for two years, eventually joining Union Theatres Ltd., drawing and designing posters, advertisements and lobby cards. In the early 1920s Ferry had a casual arrangement with the Sydney Sunday Times to provide weekly cartoons and by 1925 he was the official artist to Fox Films in Sydney.¹³

Examples of his work that appeared in the Sunday Times includes the actors Cyril Gardiner, Frederick Lloyd, Frank Hatherley and Claude Dampier. A drawing he did of visiting English actor Seymour Hicks as Mr William Busby (Old Bill) in the play Old Bill, MP, was published on the programme cover.

Tom Ferry: Frederick Lloyd as Alf in The Man in Dress Clothesat the Sydney Opera House

Sunday Times(Sydney), 29 June 1924, p.24

Tom Ferry: Claude Dampier. who was appearing in revue at Fullers’ Theatre in Sydney

Sunday Times(Sydney), 13 July 1924, p.20

Tom Ferry: Cyril Gardiner in Old Bill, MP

Sunday Times(Sydney), 6 July 1924, p.22

Tom Ferry: Cover of the programme for Old Bill, MP at the Palace Theatre, Melbourne, 20 September 1924, with Seymour Hicks as the title character

Elisabeth Kumm collection

Brodie Mack (1897–1965) combined his cartooning skills with his role as a theatrical business manager. A New Zealander, he initially worked for the Wellington Freelance as a cartoonist before becoming a theatre executive with positions as House Manager for Fullers at His Majesty’s Theatre in Wellington and then with Fullers Opera House in Auckland. Mack later moved to Sydney as Booking Manager for Fullers Vaudeville and Theatre Ltd. He was a founding member of the Society of Australian Black and White Artists in 1924 and did cartoons for Everyone’s, Fuller News, the Bulletin, Aussie, Smith’s Weekly and others.

Examples of his work from Everyone’s included Lee White, ‘the cheerful star of The Girl for the Boy’ at the Sydney Tivoli; and ‘Carter the Great’ (stage name of the American illusionist Charles Carter), who thrilled audiences with his disappearing lion act.

During 1924/24 Mack drew a series of 16 caricatures for Everyone’s titled ‘If Managers Were Artists’. Number 5 in the series depicts JCW theatre manager Tom Holt.

Brodie Mack: Lee White, the cheerful star of The Girl for the Boy, Tivoli Theatre, Sydney

Everyone’s (Sydney), 8 December 1920, p. 10

Brodie Mack: ‘CARTER (not forgetting his lion): The Magic Man at the Sydney Royal’

Everyone’s (Sydney), 16 June 1920, p.11

Brodie Mack: ‘If Managers Were Artists. No.5.’: Tommy Holt, Manager of the Theatre Royal, Melbourne (J.C. Williamson Vaudeville), ‘one of the Leaders of the Tait Navee’

Everyone’s (Sydney), 3 September 1924, p.5

From the early 1900s to the late 1920s the profession of black and white artists was predominantly a male profession, and few women artists were actively involved. There were, however, a number of fine women artists well recognised for their black and white cartoons and caricatures, including Mahdi McCrae, Esther and Betty Paterson, Grace Burns and Ruby Lindsay who were regular but casual contributors to various publications. Later, Joan Morrison and Mollie Horseman were the first women to be employed on the pay roll of Smith’s Weekly.

Typically, the work of these artists, while stylish and amusing, was placed away from the theatrical section of the magazines and appeared randomly throughout, usually as page filler ‘gag’ cartoons or to illustrate ‘women’ stories.

An exception to how the cartoons of women were typically treated was the work of Esther Paterson(1892–1971) who was a student at the National Gallery of Victoria from 1907–1912. A talented artist of street scenes and landscapes, Paterson later applied her skill to commercial art, book illustrating and caricatures/cartoons. Her theatrical caricatures were regularly featured in the Melbourne Punch pre first World War and were prominently featured on the ‘Playgoer’ pages. Her caricatures often featured female performers and her artistic style of her caricatures is markedly different to that of her male contemporaries—her women are more feminine and sensual.

Esther Paterson: Miss Zola Terrill and Ada Reeve

Punch (Melbourne), 7 February 1918, p.37 & 31 January 1918, p.195

Esther Paterson: Maude Fane and Miss Frediswyde Hunter-Watts

Punch (Melbourne), 6 September 1917, p.595 & 12 April 1917, p.595

To be concluded in the next issue.

Endnotes

1. See Elisabeth Kumm, ‘Theatre in Melbourne 1914-18: the best, the brightest and the latest’, La Trobe Journal, No. 97, March 2016

2. Punch (Melbourne), 27 May 1909, p.730.

3. ‘A Life’s Romance’, Bulletin (Sydney), 25 August 1904, p.10.

4. See The Bookfellow (Sydney), 1 July 1913, p.xvii.

5. Lone Hand (Sydney), 1 August 1912, p. 352.

6. Bulletin (Sydney), 16 June 1921, p.42.

7. Bulletin, 1 August 1912, p.10.

8. Argus (Melbourne), 8 September 1938, p.9.

9. Bulletin (Sydney), 26 March 1925, p. 35.

10. See Bert Levy, ‘Bert Levy (by Himself)’, Lone Hand (Sydney), 1 February 1912.

11. Joan Kerr, Artists and Cartoonist in Black and White: The most public art.

12. Argus (Melbourne), 7 August 1934, p.5.

13. See ‘Knights of the Pencil and Brush, No. 3: Tom Ferry’, Everyone’s, 29 April 1925, p.30.

References

‘Black and Whiters IV: Alfred Vincent’, The Bookfellow (Sydney), 1 January 1913, pp. 20–21.

‘Black and Whiters VII: Harry Julius’, The Bookfellow (Sydney), 1 July 1913, p. xvii-xix.

David M. Dow, Melbourne Savages: A history of the first fifty years of the Melbourne Savage Club, Melbourne Savage Club, Melbourne, 1947.

W.E. Fitz Henry, ‘Stories of “Bulletin” Artists’, Bulletin (Sydney), 14 December 1955, pp. 26–28, 32.

Harry Julius, Theatrical Caricatures, with Marginal Anecdotes by Claude McKay, NSW Bookstall Co. Ltd., 1912.

Joan Kerr, Artists and Cartoonist in Black and White: The most public art, National Trust of Australia, Sydney, c.1999.

‘Knights of the Pencil and Brush, No. 3: Tom Ferry’, Everyone’s, 29 April 1925, p.30.

Elisabeth Kumm, ‘Theatre in Melbourne 1914–18: the best, the brightest and the latest’, La Trobe Journal, No. 97, March 2016, pp.6–23, www.slv.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/La-Trobe-Journal-97-Elisabeth-Kumm.pdf

Bert Levy, ‘Bert Levy (by Himself)’, Lone Hand (Sydney), Vol. 10, No. 58, 1 February 1912, pp. 293–300.

Ross McMullin, Will Dyson: Australia’s radical genius, Scribe, North Carlton, Vic, 2006.

Carol Mills, ‘In Black and White: The little-known Lindsay: Ruby Lindsay’, This Australia, Winter 1984, pp.80-85, available from Women’s Museum of Australia, wmoa.com.au/uploads/the-little-known-Lindsay.pdf

Les Tanner, ‘The Black and White Maestros’, Bulletin (Sydney), 29 January 1980, pp.134–142.

M.G. Skipper, ‘The Art of the Bulletin’, Bulletin (Sydney), 29 January 1930, pp.40–42.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Elisabeth Kumm for her advice and comments.

Montage by Judy Leech. Image on front page: Caricature of Maurice Moscovitch by Len Reynolds, 1927. National Library of Australia, Canberra.

By the late1920s significant social and economic factors had seriously affected the viability of the Australian theatre industry. The combination of the depression, the arrival of new talking films and the imposition of entertainment taxes, resulted in several theatres and vaudeville houses in Sydney and Melbourne closing or being converted into cinemas to accommodate movies. According to Kenneth Slessor, the decay of live theatre was a revolution brought about by shadows on a screen.¹

A consequence of this decline in live shows was fewer opportunities for black and white artists to caricaturise theatrical performers. Moreover, newspapers and magazines increasingly directed their resources away from live theatre to reporting and reviewing ‘talkies’. The Bulletin, for instance, ran a new movie-based segment, ‘Sundry Shadows’ alongside ‘Sundry Shows’ and it was not long before the movie section became more prominent. The shift in entertainment also saw a change to Everyone’s magazine masthead from ‘Australian Variety and Show World’ to ‘Motion Picture Authority’. Movies were in vogue. Live theatre was no longer the principal form of popular entertainment in Australia.

While initially it looked as if talking pictures would kill the live theatre industry, it soon became clear that the public wanted more than just a straight programme of canned entertainment.²

During the depression years Australia’s largest theatrical enterprise J.C. Williamson Ltd turned to revivals of musical comedies and Gilbert & Sullivan to weather the storm. Home grown stars such as Gladys Moncrieff and Claude Flemming, and Madge Elliott and Cyril Ritchard, who returned to Australia after success in London, helped to keep the theatres open and the black and white artists busy. The arrival of the London companies of Margaret Rawlings in 1931 and Sybil Thorndike in 1932 were a sign that things were improving, and with the re-opening of His Majesty’s Theatre in Melbourne in 1934 (having been ravished by fire in 1929), theatre seems to be back to normal—that is until 1939 with the onset of war.

The 1930s also saw the growing importance of independent theatres, little theatre and amateur shows. Commenting on the growth of the Little Theatre Movement in Australia, Harry Tighe, playwright and novelist, said the movement had largely arisen because the public was starved of decent drama.³ While independent theatres staged a variety of plays, these did not generally provide much scope for theatrical cartoons, although Harry Julius did a number of cartoons of performances by Doris Fitton’s Independent Theatre Players in Sydney.

Several of the leading black and white artists of the 1920s continued their theatrical artwork into the next decade. Harry Julius was now sketching cartoons for the Sydney Mail, Sam Wells was drawing for the Melbourne Herald, Mervyn Skipper was active at the Bulletin until his departure in 1933, and Stanley Parker was the principal cartoonist at Table Talk.

But there was also change! A number of the practitioners had extended their artwork away from theatrical cartooning and caricaturing to other aspects of art. Harry Julius, Jim Bancks, Dunstan (Zif) and Souter, among others, were producing comics and comic strips and Julius was the first Australian to make animated cartoons for the cinema. Tom Glover’s work now focused on political and social issues and Mahdi McCrae and Syd Miller had added illustrating movie stars to their repertoire.⁴

The 1930s also saw the arrival of a number of ‘new’ black and white artists who were drawing theatrical caricatures and cartoons. One of these was John Frith, others included Kerwin Maegraith, Mick Armstrong, Thomas Arthur Challen, Noel Counihan, Don Nicol and George Johnston.

Harry Julius: Characters from Dearest Enemy

Sydney Mail, 11 March 1931, p.13

Harry Julius: Characters from And So to Bed

Sydney Mail, 25 March 1931, p.46

Harry Julius: Characters from Middle Watch

Sydney Mail, 10 February 1932, p.14

Harry Julius: Characters from Happy and Glorious

Sydney Mail, 13 July 1932, p.12

In 1929, after two decades at the Bulletin, Harry Julius (1885–1938) joined the Sydney Mail, contributing cartoons to their theatre pages from 1930–32. One of Sydney’s most recognisable and popular cartoonists, Julius was also one of the busiest with his newspaper and cinema commitments. Julius died unexpectedly from a heart attack in 1938 aged only 53.

Examples of Julius’ work in the Sydney Mail includes the principals from the 1931 musical comedy Dearest Enemywith Dorothy Brunton as Betsy Burke, Sidney Burchall as Sir John Copeland, Cecil Kellaway as the thirsty General Tyson, and Leslie Holland as General Lowe; and And So to Bed, a comedy set during the times of Samuel Pepys, with Albert Collins as Pepys and Clarence Murphy as Charles II. Doris Fitton played Mistress Knight. In July 1932 Julius captured characters from the Independent Theatre Company’s production of The Middle Watch, a naval comedy by Ian Hay and Stephen King-Hall set on a British ship stationed in Chinese waters. Directed by Doris Fitton, it starred Richard Parry, Charles Degotardi, Charles Stanley, Bruce Bennett-Smith and Elizabeth Camper. Another cartoon, also published in July 1932, depicts the production Happy and Glorious which was performed by the Margaret Rawlings Company at the Sydney Criterion. The play is concerned with the impact of the suffragette movement and the changes to society due to WWI. It featured Rawlings as a budding suffragette, Gabriel Toyne as the policeman who arrested her for window smashing, Kenneth Brampton as the Doctor who ‘forcibly fed’ her, and Barry Barnes as a Tommy waiting for the war to finish.

John Frith: Characters from Collits’ Inn

Bulletin (Sydney),4 July 1934, p.18

John Frith: Characters from Balalaika

Bulletin (Sydney),22 December 1937, p.32

Taking over the illustrating of theatrical personnel from stalwarts Julius and Hal Gay was Londoner, John Frith (1906–2000). While Frith was the Bulletin’s principal theatrical caricaturist for 15 years, he also drew non-theatrical celebrities and increasingly caricatures of movie performers. He was also at one time the Bulletin’s co-art editor with Ted Scorfield. On leaving the Bulletin, Frith joined the Sydney Morning Herald in 1944 and in 1950 moved to the Melbourne Herald where he worked for 18 years, producing a daily cartoon, until his retirement.

According to one source, Frith’s artwork relied upon minimal background and simple lines within a compressed space to illustrate his characters. This style was influenced by Japanese prints, which he had acquired an interest in when working in Japan as a young man.⁵ His cartoon style is evident in examples of his work shown.

During the 1930s, Frith drew hundreds of cartoons for the Bulletin showcasing musical comedy and entertainments presented at the Sydney theatres. Collits’ Inn, a Frank Thring production, debuted at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne in December 1933 and played at the Sydney Tivoli the following year. Collits’ Inn holds a significant place in Australian musical theatre history—it was not an overseas import but an all-Australian musical production with a strong and unmistakeable parochial flavour—Australian actors, libretto, music, ballets (including a corroboree), scenery and a setting at the foot of the Blue Mountains. The Frith caricature shows the three principals: Mary Collits (Gladys Moncrieff), Captain Jack Lake (Robert Chisholm) and Robert Keane (Claude Flemming) who were involved in a love triangle and eventual fatal duel.

Another musical comedy captured by Frith was Balalaika, which opened at the Sydney Theatre Royal on 16 December 1937 following a successful season in Melbourne. Told through a series of flashbacks, the musical begins and ends in a Montmartre nightclub called the ‘Balalaika’. The story concerns two lovers, a Russian nobleman and a ballerina, who survive the Revolution, foil an attempted assassination of the Tsar, and escape to exile in Paris. Frith’s cartoon depicts Gaston Mervale, Sidney Wheeler, Robert Halliday and Clifford Cowley (with bomb).

Lilac Time, a romantic musical comedy based on the life of composer Franz Schubert and his infatuation with a young woman, Lili, first played in Australia at Her Majesty’s Theatre Sydney in 1924 and later the Royal Theatre Sydney in 1933. Frith’s caricatures show John Ralston as Schubert, Evelyn Gardiner as Marini, Leslie Holland as Count Scharntorff and Bernard Manning as Kappel.

John Frith: Characters from Ghosts at the Sydney Royal

Bulletin (Sydney), 19 October 1932, p.14

John Frith: Characters from Madame Plays Napat the Sydney Royal

Bulletin (Sydney), 26 October 1932, p.18

During October 1932, Sybil Thorndike and her London company appeared at the Sydney Theatre Royal in a round of plays. Frith was in the audience making sketches of the principals. His rendering of Ghosts shows Bruce Winston as Jacob Engstrand, Lewis Casson as Pastor Manders, Hilda Davies as Regina, Dame Sybil Thorndike as Mrs. Alving, and Christopher Casson as Oswald Alving. ‘Dame Thorndike wears a bustle with dignity’, reported the Bulletin. Another costume play, Madame Plays Nap, saw Dame Sybil as Madame de Beauvais, the Parisian pawnbroker who becomes a favourite of Napoleon. The actors in Frith’s drawing also include Norman Shelley (Captain Venatier), Albert Chevalier (M. de Beauvais), Michael Martin-Harvey (Lavalle), Lewis Casson (Napoleon), and Bruce Winston (Ferrier). The same season Dame Sybil also played Lady Macbeth and Saint Joan.

Stanley Parker: Ivan Menzies as the Duke of Plaza Toro in The Gondoliers

Table Talk (Melbourne), 20 June 1935, p.15

Stanley Parker: Evelyn Gardiner as the Duchess of Plaza Toro in The Gondoliers

Table Talk (Melbourne), 20 June 1935, p.15

Born in the UK but raised in Melbourne, Stanley Parker (1909–1981) studied art under Bill McInnes at the National Gallery School, winning prizes for his drawings. Encouraged by dancer Stephanie Deste, he started drawing portraits of theatrical celebrities, initially from memory because he was too shy to ask people to sit for him. In 1929 his portrait study of Pavlova met with the dancer’s approval.⁶ His characteristic portraits adorned the pages of Table Talk throughout the 1930s (along with commentary and interviews), and although he departed for London in 1936, he continued to send sketches back to Australia informing readers of Australian performers abroad. From 1937–1960, he contributed regular caricatures to the London-based theatre journal Theatre World.

Stanley Parker: Minnie Everett, ‘the only woman producer of Gilbert and Sullivan that the world has known’

Table Talk (Melbourne), 29 August 1935, p.20

Stanley Parker: Judith Anderson as Lady Macbeth, London, 1937

Theatre World (London), January 1938, p.9

In Australia the operas of Gilbert and Sullivan were popular with audiences and many talented and popular artists numbered among the ranks of J.C. Williamson’s Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, from the 1890s onward. In 1931 Ivan Menzies and Evelyn Gardiner joined the company and soon became firm favourites. Menzies played leading tenor roles such as the Duke of Plaza Toro, the Lord Chancellor and Major General Stanley; while Gardiner specialised in the contralto roles of the Duchess of Plaza Toro, Katisha and Little Buttercup. Parker’s drawings, which dates from their 1935 season, perfectly captures their facial expressions and the lavishness of their costumes for The Gondoliers. Another drawing from the same period depicts Minnie Everett who directed many of the operas. She was said to be ‘the only woman producer of Gilbert and Sullivan that the world has known’.⁷

‘Stanley Parker’s 1935 Christmas Cocktail Party’. Table Talk (Melbourne), 1 November 1935, p.12.

Also in 1935, on the eve of his departure for England, ‘Stanley Parker’s 1935 Christmas Cocktail Party’ was published in Table Talk wherein he imagines the crème de la crème of Melbourne society celebrating the start of the festive season. Included among the crowd are many recognisable figures from the stage including Gladys Moncrieff, Florence Austral, Alfred Frith, Mona Barrie, Margaret Bannerman, Madge Elliott and Cyril Ritchard, Dame Clara Butt, Gus Bluett, Sir Benjamin Fuller, Lewis Casson, and Campbell Copelin, to name a few.

During Parker’s two decades with Theatre World in London he contributed caricatures of all the leading performers of the day. His ‘grotesque’ portrait of Judith Anderson, who played Lady Macbeth alongside Laurence Olivier for the Old Vic in 1937, is characteristic of his cartoons during this period.

Don Nicol: Self-portrait, 1946

Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne

Don Nicol: Kenny Brenna, 1940

Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne

The well-known stage comedian Don Nicol (1906–1949) who appeared in J.C. Williamson’s musical comedies and other productions was a very competent caricaturist. While waiting to go on stage he would often be seen dashing off a drawing, whether it be a self-portrait, such as the one penned during the J.C. Williamson production of Follow the Girls at the Sydney Theatre Royal in 1946 when he played Goofy Gale, with Lois Green as Bubbles La Marr. Another is of the American vaudevillian Kenny Brenna, with whom he appeared in the Tivoli revue The Time of Your Life in 1940.

Don Nicol: Claude Flemming and Gladys Moncrieff in The Southern Maid. Published in Table Talk (Melbourne), 19 November 1936, p.18.

Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne

Don Nicol: Characters from Wild Violets: Lois Green (Mitzi), Isobel Cue (Lena) and Diana du Cane (Liesel)

Table Talk (Melbourne), 7 January 1937, p.12

During the mid to late thirties and forties, Nicol’s caricatures and sketches often cropped up in the pages of Table Talk and other papers, such as his impressions of Claude Flemming and Gladys Moncrieff who revived their original roles (for the first time in thirteen years) of Francesco del Fuego and Dolores in the musical comedy The Southern Maid at Melbourne’s King’s Theatre in November 1936. His caricatures of Lois Green (Mitzi), Isobel Cue (Lena) and Diana du Cane (Liesel) in Wild Violets is only a small section of a much larger cartoon. Wild Violets, a Tyrolean musical by Robert Stolz opened at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Melbourne on 26 December 1936. Don Nicol appeared in both productions.

Kerwin Maegraith: Madge Elliott in Roberta at the Theatre Royal

Sydney Mail, 20 March 1935, p.14

Kerwin Maegraith: Cyril Ritchard in Roberta at the Theatre Royal

Sydney Mail, 20 March 1935, p.14

Another fine black and white artist of the thirties was Adelaide-born Kerwin Maegraith (1903–1970). He drew for a variety of publications including the Sydney Morning Herald, Sunday Times(Sydney), Sydney Mail, and Advertiser (Adelaide). Around 1931, a major work by him—“Who’s Who in Adelaide”: Well-known people caricatured—was published by the Advertiser Newspaper Limited in Aid of the Lord Mayor’s Unemployment Fund.

The Jerome Kern musical comedy Roberta opened at Melbourne’s His Majesty’s Theatre on 22 December 1934, with star Australian song and dance duo Madge Elliott and Cyril Ritchard in the leading roles. A season at the Theatre Royal in Sydney followed on 16 March 1935. Set in a Parisian dress shop, the musical was a visual and aural feast, and marked Cyril Ritchard’s directorial debut. As an exiled Russian Princess, Madge Elliott was encored for her rendering of ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’. The musical was said to have cost J.C. Williamson £20,000 to stage: a sure sign that theatre was back in the black.

Kerwin Maegraith: Don Nicol at his easel (left) with Eric Bush, the juvenile lead in Nice Goings On at the Criterion

Sydney Mail, 16 January 1935, p.16

Kerwin Maegraith: Minnie Love as Countess De Large in The Women

Sydney Morning Herald, 3 August 1939, p.30

In depicting the characters from the J.C. Williamson musical Nice Goings On at the Sydney Criterion during 1935, Maegraith also included a portrait of fellow artist and performer Don Nicol, described in the caption as ‘a clever black and white artist [who] is always to be found at his easel when not engaged as Mr Lehmann upon the stage’. Nicol is pictured along with Eric Bush ‘the handsome juvenile lead of the show’ who played Mr Ginkle.⁸

Another caricature by Maegraith shows Minnie Love going through her hilarious lines at a full-dress rehearsal of the Clare Booth comedy The Women. The popular comedienne played the part of the Countess De Large when it was performed at the Minerva Theatre. Australian audiences had seen Love, many years earlier, as the principal boy, a dashing Prince Charming in J.C. Williamson’s pantomime, Cinderella. The producer of the pantomime was Charles Wenman who also produced The Women.

Kerwin Maegraith: Independent Theatre Personalities appearing in Touch Wood at the Savoy Theatre, Sydney (clockwise from top): Doris Fitton, Mollie Brown, Anne Gordon and Leslie Hay Simpson

Sydney Mail, 18 March 1936, p.35

Kerwin Maegraith: Some of the Stars in It Ain’t Cricket: from top to bottom: Don Bradman, Joe Thompson as Lord Hailsham; Jim Barrett as an MCC attendant; Manoel Lagonie as Mussolini; Will Rudge, the Julius Caesar and Ned Kelly of the cast; Jack Hick as Bernard Shaw, and Harvey Cook as an English barracker

Advertiser (Adelaide), 8 December 1933, p.13

A cartoon from the Sydney Mail, exploiting his penchant for profiles, depicts the leading players in Touch Wood, a drama that enjoyed a short season at Doris Fitton’s Independent Theatre in Sydney during their residency at the Savoy Theatre. Set in a Scottish Hotel, where five women are holidaying, Touch Wood candidly analyses their love life.

Maegraith also had an interest in music and composition. He wrote the words to a number of songs, including ‘The Empire Calls’, ‘Miss Australia’ and ‘The Anzac House Song’ and the words and lyrics of It Ain’t Cricket, a musical comedy first performed at the Theatre Royal, Adelaide, in December 1933 in aid of the Ernest Jones Testimonial Fund. Several Australian cricketers, including Don Bradman, were in the play and audience.

Challen: Noel Coward, 28.11.1940

National Library of Australia, Canberra

Challen: Impressions of La Meri, in El Jarade Tapatio, a national Mexican dance (left) and in Bedjojo, a popular dance of the Javanese court (right)

Sydney Morning Herald, 3 November 1936, p.16

Thomas Arthur Challen (1911–1964) studied art at the Melbourne National Gallery and often exhibited his work, including a one-man show of portraits and drawings at Hogan’s Gallery in Little Collins Street, Melbourne, in 1937. Challen drew caricatures for several publications including Table Talk and the Sydney Morning Herald. He went to London in 1938 and worked as a political cartoonist on the Sunday Pictorial, returning to Australia in 1940 to take up the position of staff cartoonist on the Daily Mirror (Sydney). Challen was also an accomplished musician, skilled in several instruments, particularly the violin.

Challen’s caricature of Noel Coward was drawn during the entertainer’s seven-week tour of Australian and New Zealand. Under the auspices of the Red Cross, the tour was designed to promote Empire interest in the war effort, and to raise funds for patriotic purposes. Beginning in November 1940, he visited the major cities, attending a progression of luncheons, theatre openings and receptions that resembled a Royal Tour. Feted and mobbed wherever he went, he delivered a series of patriotic lectures that were published in pamphlet form by the Specialty Press in Melbourne as Noel Coward: His talks in Australia.

The world-famous Spanish-American dancer La Meri performed at the Sydney Theatre Royal supported by a musical trio of whom Challen was one. La Meri provided the entire two-hour programme of fifteen dances herself: ‘When Sydney audiences were watching the dancing of La Meri at the Theatre Royal, they did not realise that the solo violinist Mr. Thomas Challen was making mental sketches of her, and later translating them to paper.’⁹

Noel Counihan: ‘Mr. Gregan McMahon discusses The Great Australian Drama with Mr. Roy Rene (Mo)’

Table Talk (Melbourne), 7 April 1938, p.10

Noel Counihan: ‘The Comedy Harmonists in Jocular Mood’

Table Talk (Melbourne), 7 October 1937, p.12

Best known as a social realist painter and lithographer, Noel Counihan (1913–1986) sometimes ventured into cartoon art. Having enrolled as a night student at the Melbourne Gallery Art School in 1929, he held his first one-man exhibition of pencil portraits and caricatures at the Soho Gallery, Melbourne in 1933. The exhibition led to freelance work of caricatures for the weekend supplement of the Melbourne Argus. Around the same time, he began contributing caricatures to Musical News, Table Talk, the Bulletin, Sydney’s Workers Weekly and the Brisbane Telegraph.

As McKenzie wrote of Counihan’s art—‘underpinning all of his work is his superb draughtsmanship’;¹⁰ a skill which is evident in his rare excursion into theatrical cartooning.

One of Counihan’s theatrical caricatures, published in Table Talk, references a ‘tongue in cheek’ interview between Roy Rene and Gregan McMahon (the Gregan McMahon Players). In response to a flippant question from Rene, McMahon contends that the Australian stage is in a sorry state and to revive it someone needs to write an opus typifying the inherent spirit of Australia.

Another characteristic caricature by Counihan is of the six Comedy Harmonists in one of their musical frolics when performing at the Princess Theatre Melbourne. The Viennese ensemble toured Australia and America in the 1930s presenting their repertoire of folk songs sung in harmony with a superabundance of comedy.

Sam Wells: Two caricatures: George Wallace and ventriloquist Arthur Prince

Herald (Melbourne), 17 January 1930, p.6 & 25 July 1931, p.14

Sam Wells: Herbert Browne as the Vicomte de Bethune and Frank Bradley as Napoleon in The Duchess of Dantzic at the Theatre Royal, Melbourne, 1931. This cartoon was published in the Herald (Melbourne), 29 August 1931, p.20.

National Library of Australia, Canberra

Joing the staff of Melbourne Punch after WWI, Sam Wells (1885–1967) moved to the Melbourne Herald in 1922 and the following year produced a book of cartoons based on his work at the Herald. After ten years with the Herald, he went to England to work with the Manchester Daily Dispatch, returning in 1941 to re-join the Herald as their principal political cartoonist, a position he held until compulsory retirement in 1950. In his later years he worked at the Age, producing a weekly cartoon. Besides his theatrical cartoons, Wells is well-known for his sporting, particularly football, cartoons.

His caricatures were often referred to as having the ‘Wellsian touch’. His impishness and good humour is evident in his likenesses of comedian George Wallace and ventriloquist Arthur Prince with his dummy ‘Sailor Jim’. The image of George Wallace also appears on the cover of a programme in the collection of the Sydney’s Powerhouse museum.¹¹

A rare example of original artwork is at the National Library of Australia. Dedicated to the actor Herbert Browne, it depicts Browne and Frank Bradley as Vicomte de Bethune and Napoleon in a revival of the musical The Duchess of Dantzic at the Melbourne Theatre Royal during 1931.

Vic Cowdroy: Judith Anderson as Elise Van Zile in Cobra at the Criterion Theatre

Triad (Sydney), 8 February 1927, p.11

Mahdi McCrae: Another portrait of Anderson as Elise Van Zile

Home (Sydney), 1 February 1927, p.23

One woman working as a professional cartoonist during the inter-war years was Vic Cowdroy (1908-1994) who studied art at the East Sydney Technical School under the eminent sculptor Rayner Hoff. In the twenties and thirties she drew cartoons for numerous publications, including Triad, Aussie and Home, and in the mid-thirties for Man magazine under the pseudonym ‘Royston’ to avoid acknowledging her gender. Joan Kerr proposes that this was probably an editorial decision, since to name a woman cartoonist would have threatened Man’s macho image.¹²

The Cobra played at the Sydney Criterion in January 1927 to mixed reviews. One review described the play as ‘bunkham, pure and undefiled from start to finish’, another as ‘a sordid sex play’, complete with vampish intrigue. But there was high praise for Judith Anderson who played Elise Van Zile. Anderson was described as svelte, alluring, intelligent, mannered, and disturbing.¹³ A description beautifully captured in Cowdroy’s caricature.

Another female artist who published a cartoon of Judith Anderson in the same role was Mahdi McCrae (1905–1990). A competent watercolourist, cartoonist and book illustrator, she started as a fashion illustrator. She provided cartoons to Aussie, Home, the Bulletin, and other publications.

Jack Quayle: Some of the stars of Sons O’ Guns at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Sydney

Daily Pictorial (Sydney), 19 October 1930, p.20

Tasmanian-born Jack Quayle (1899–1982) studied drawing at the Julian Ashton School in Sydney. He sold mainly freelance sporting cartoons to the Bulletin, Daily Pictorial, Aussie, Fairplay and Humour. Quayle created the ‘Casual Comic’ strip for the Daily Telegraph in 1927 and later ‘Dora Diary’, ‘Quayle’s Commentary’ and ‘Quayle’s Cartoonogram’ for the Adelaide News. He was also editorial cartoonist at the News for twelve years. From the late 1930s, he also drew ‘Dora’ for the Argus.

An example of his work from 1930 is his caricature of Sons O’ Guns, which he drew for Sydney’s Daily Pictorial. Set in 1914 in Australia and France, this musical comedy follows the mis-deeds and amusing situations undertaken by Jimmy Cranfield (Gus Bluett), a private who starts as a ‘slacker’ and ends as a hero. Bluett is supported by Bertha Riccardo as Yvonne, a French maid in love with Jimmy, and Hobson (Leo Franklyn), his former valet now a sergeant.

Jack Quayle: Some principals from Under Your Hat at the Theatre Royal, Adelaide

News (Adelaide), 24 August 1939, p.7

Jack Quayle: Principals in The Lilac Domino at the Theatre Royal, Adelaide

News (Adelaide), 26 May 1938, p.3

Two later examples of Quayle’s work were published during his time at the Adelaide News depicting characters in Under Your Hat and The Lilac Domino. The storyline of Under Your Hat revolves around the attempts of a screen star and his wife to recover an aeroplane carburettor stolen by enemy agents. In his typical style, Quayle caricaturises the leading man Edwin Styles as Jack Millet, Field Fisher as Sir Geoffrey Arlington, Lily Moore as the prim schoolmistress Miss Stevens and Eileen Murphy as Carole, the Russian decoy.

The Adelaide Musical Comedy Company was an enthusiastic amateur group who produced several shows a year at the Theatre Royal, with the proceeds being donated to charity. In May 1938 they mounted The Lilac Domino. An old favourite with audiences, the musical comedy centres on three fortune-hunting bachelors who throw dice at a party to see which of them would find a rich heiress to marry, so to keep all three in a comfortable lifestyle. The plan is skuttled when Aubigny falls in love with an unknown girl who attends the party as a lilac domino. The Quayle drawing shows Ken Fraser, as the Honourable Andre Aubigny, the loser of the ungallant contest, Rex Dawe as Prosper Woodhouse, one of the trio, Cedric Trigg as millionaire Cornelius Cleveden and Reg Verran as Caraban the conductor of a gypsy orchestra who suggested the dice-game. The musical was directed by Alan Chapman, formerly with J.C. Williamson Ltd.

Len Reynolds: Caricature of Maurice Moscovitch, 1927. This drawing was published in Table Talk (Melbourne), 21 April 1927, p.21.

National Library of Australia, Canberra

Len Reynolds: Characters in The Merry Widow at the Theatre Royal, Melbourne

Table Talk (Melbourne), 19 November 1931, p.13

On graduating from the Hobart Technical College, Len Reynolds (1897–1939) exhibited with the Art Society of Tasmania, 1918-19. The following year he relocated to Melbourne. During the 1920s and 1930s he contributed cartoons to Lone Hand and Table Talk. For the latter he provided full-page cartoons, many of which were published under the banner ‘Lions and Lambs’, which featured caricatures of theatrical, sporting and society personalities. Reynolds’ career came to an unexpected end when he drowned after falling off a cliff in Beaumaris (Vic).

A rare example of original artwork by Reynolds depicts the Russian-American dramatic actor Maurice Moscovitch standing in front of a curtained proscenium stage. Moscovitch was a star of Yiddish theatre in New York and came to prominence in 1918 when he played Shylock on the London stage. He toured Australia for J.C. Williamson’s in 1925 and 1927, with a repertoire that included The Merchant of Venice, Trilby, the Edgar Wallace thrillers The Ringer and The Terror, as well as The Fake and The Silent House. During his stay, his portrait was painted by John Longstaff, winning the 1925 Archibald Prize.

A huge success for Florence Young during the 1910s and for Gladys Moncrieff during the 1920s, Dorothy Brunton played the role of Sonia in The Merry Widow for the first time at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Brisbane on 6 June 1931, scoring another triumph in a season that saw her play the ‘lovable Irish girl’ in Dearest Enemy and the ‘dam’d little hussy’ Madame Sans Gene in The Duchess of Dantzic. By the time The Merry Widow made it to Melbourne, in November 1931, some of the principals had changed, as depicted in Reynolds’ drawing. Herbert Browne replaced Sidney Burchall as Prince Danilo, Arthur Stigant succeeded Cecil Kellaway as Baron Popoff, Frank Bradley took over from Victor Gouriet as General Novikovich, and Leo Franklyn was Nisch in place of Frank Bradley. Along with from Dorothy Brunton as Sonia, Herbert Browne continued as De Jolidon. When The Merry Widow reached Sydney in January 1932, Frank Leighton was the production’s third Danilo.

Mick Armstrong: ‘Preparing for the Opera’. Herald (Melbourne), 22 September 1934, p.26.

Mick Armstrong: Impressions of some of the leading figures in La Boheme, including Cesarina Valobra (far right) as Mimi. Herald (Melbourne), 23 July 1932, p.24.

Harold Barry (Mick) Armstrong (1903–1978) contributed mainly political cartoons to a number of publications—Bulletin, Sydney Sun, Smith’s Weekly—and was the first political cartoonist at the Argus. Armstrong worked at the Melbourne Herald from 1932 to 1934 and did many theatrical cartoons during this period.

An example of Armstrong’s theatrical cartoons includes ‘Preparing for the Opera’ which he drew for the Herald in 1934. The cartoon depicts the director Charles Moor rehearsing singers Francesca Duret, Thea Phillips and others ahead of Benjamin Fuller’s Grand Opera season at the Apollo Theatre in Melbourne. Another opera-related cartoon is of La Boheme which was performed during the 1932 Grand Opera season at the Melbourne Theatre Royal, with Signorina Cesarina Valobra as Mimi. Unfortunately for the Signorina, memories of Melba in the same role were still strong and ‘each phrase sung by the leading soprano recalled a voice of austere perfection—a unique and unapproachable art’.¹⁴

With the commencement of World War II, the number of theatrical cartoons and caricatures published in the illustrated newspapers and journals began to diminish as patriotic images of war, cartoons about diggers, politics and sport grew in popularity. Though theatre was not totally abandoned, as the war years rolled by politics remained the number one focus for Australian cartoonists.

George Molnar: Richard Beynon’s 1957 play The Shifting Heart

From The Arts in Australia: Theatre

From the 1950s George Molnar (1910–1998) had theatre cartoons published in the Sydney Morning Herald and Daily Telegraph. Having started his career at the Argus in 1946, Vane Lindesay (b.1920) also contributed cartoons with a theatre-focus to Australasian Post and the Bulletin. Interested in the history of cartoons, Lindesay published numerous books on the topic, and also provided the illustrations for Frank Thring and Roland Roccheccioli’s The Actor Who Laughed, an anthology of theatre anecdotes.

Another contemporary Australian artist is Col Bodie. Better known for his drawings of sport stars, Bodie was commissioned to draw caricatures of theatre celebrities for display in the Café Bar at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Melbourne. Many of his drawings have been reproduced in Frank Van Staten’s 2018 book Her Majesty’s Theatre Melbourne.

John Spooner: Dame Joan Sutherland

Courtesy of John Spooner

John Spooner: Dame Kiri Te Kanawa

Courtesy of John Spooner

From 1974 award-winning Melbourne cartoonist John Spooner (b.1946) began drawing for the Age as the paper’s editorial cartoonist and illustrator. His long association with the paper came to an end in 2016 and he now draws a daily cartoon for the Australian. While politics, social and economic issues have been his main focus, he occasionally penned caricatures of theatrical and musical celebrities, such as his portraits of the two Dames: Joan Sutherland and Kiri Te Kanawa.

Throughout the war years and beyond America and Britain both retained a proud tradition of theatre-focused cartoons and caricatures. The walls of Sardi’s restaurant in New York for example showcases the work of Alex Gard (1898–1948), a Russian refugee who was hired by the restaurant’s owner to draw caricatures of Broadway celebrities in exchange for a meal. Between 1927 and 1948 he drew over 720 caricatures. In the years that followed Gard was succeeded by artists John Mackey, Donald Bevan and Richard Baratz.

Other well-known New York-based caricaturists include Al Hirschfeld (1903–2003) and Al Frueh (1906–1962). For some seven decades Hirschfeld’s cartoons regularly appeared in the New York Times, as well as on posters and on the cover of Playbill theatre programmes. Frueh drew for the New Yorker from 1925 until his death and collections of his work were also published in book form.

Al Hirschfeld: Nicol Williamson, as Henry VIII, woos Penny Fuller in Rex, 1976

New York Public Library, New York

Al Frueh: Caricature of the 1939 Noel Coward musical Set to Music

New York Public Library, New York

In Britain, William Hewison (1925–2002) continued in the footsteps of Bernard Partridge and Phil May, specialising in theatrical cartoons and holding the post of art editor at Punch for twenty-five years. During the 1970s and 80s his cartoons were published alongside the theatre reviews of Sheridan Morley, when he was the journal’s arts editor and drama critic. Similarily Australian-born John Jensen (1930–2018), as well as drawing political cartoons for the Sunday Telegraph, contributed social cartoons to the Spectator and theatre cartoons to Tatler.

While the hey day of theatrical caricature may be over, the art is not completely dead, and as this survey shows, Australia has had a rich tradition of black and white artists who deserve greater recognition.

Endnotes

1. ‘Stage takes a knock’, Smith’s Weekly, 4 January 1930, p.17

2. Everyone’s (Sydney), 30 July 1930, p.4

3. Sun (Sydney), 19 June 1932, p.21

4. See for example Smith’s Weekly (Sydney),21 January 1933, p.10 and the Sun (Sydney), 13 September 1936, p.65 and 21 August 1938, p.8

5. Cherie Prosser, ‘Distorting the Image: Caricature for an Australian audience’, 27 November 2013, www.awm.gov.au

6. Bulletin(Sydney), 1 September 1927, p.46 and Bulletin (Sydney), 5 June 1929, p.44

7. Table Talk(Melbourne), 29 August 1935, p.20

8. Sydney Mail, 16 January 1935, p.16

9. Sydney Morning Herald, 3 November 1936, p.6

10. Janet McKenzie, Noel Counihan, p.5

11. ‘Monster Benefit Tendered to Professor Fred Ireland, New Town Hall, Prahran, Thursday, 16th November 1933’, Museum of Applied Arts, Sydney, https://collection.maas.museum/object/377702)

12. See Artists and Cartoonists in Black and White, pp.16-17; also Heritage, p.345

13. Triad (Sydney), 8 February 1937, p.11

14. Argus(Melbourne), 8 July 1932, p.8

References

Australian Variety Theatre Archive: Popular Culture Entertainment 1850-1930, ozvta.com

C.R. Brandish, ‘Black and White Art has Flourished: Australia has founded and fostered a great tradition in a popular art form’, Argus (Melbourne), Week-End Magazine, 1 July 1939

‘The Cartoonist Wields a Mighty Pen’, Mail (Adelaide), Magazine Section, 28 January 1933, p.1

‘The Depression and the Australian Theatre’, http://www.hat-archive.com/1930s.htm

Guy Hansen, ‘The Best of the Bulletin Cartoonists’, 12 July 2019, https://www.nla.gov.au/stories/audio/the-best-of-the-bulletin-cartoonists

Guy Hansen, ‘Inked: Australian Cartoons’, 7 March 2019, https://www.nla.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/inked-australian-cartoons

Joan Kerr (ed), Heritage: The national women's art book, 500 works by 500 Australian women artists from colonial times to 1955, Art and Australia, Roseville, NSW, 1995.

Joan Kerr, Artists and Cartoonist in Black and White: The most public art, National Trust of Australia, Sydney, c.1999.

Vane Lindesay, The Inked Image: A social historical survey of Australian comic art, Heinemann, 1970

Kerwin Maegraith, Who’s Who in Adelaide: Well-known people caricatured, Advertiser Newspaper Limited in Aid of the Lord Mayor’s Unemployment Fund, [1931?], http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/148469

Janet McKenzie, Noel Counihan, Kangaroo Press Pty. Ltd., 1986

Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney, https://www.maas.museum

Noel Coward: His talks in Australia, The Specialty Press, c.1941

Cherrie Prosser, ‘Distorting the Image: Caricature for an Australian audience’, 27 November 2013, https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/blog/distorting-image-caricature-australian-audience

John Spooner, A Spooner in the works: The art of John Spooner, The Text Publishing Company, 1999

Les Tanner, ‘The Black and White Maestros’, Bulletin (Sydney), 29 January 1980

Cheryl Threadgold, In the Name of the Theatre: The history, culture and voices of amateur theatre in Victoria, Cheryl Threadgold, 2020

Frank Van Straten, Her Majesty’s Theatre, Melbourne: The shows, the stars, the stories,Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2018

Frank Thring & Roland Roccheccioli, The Actor Who Laughed, Hutchinson, 1985