painter, printmaker, cartoonist and caricaturist, was born in South Melbourne. Although he attended evening classes at the National Gallery School in 1930, he was mostly self-taught as an artist. He did a linocut cover for the second issue of Proletariat (organ of the Melbourne University Labor Club) vol.1 no.2, July 1932 and drew weekly caricatures for the Melbourne Argus from 1935. He also did caricatures for the Bulletin , Table Talk and Sun News-Pictorial during the Depression years. As 'Cunningham’ he did the cover 'Port Kembla Solidarity’ for the Trade Union Leader (Central organ of militant unionism), vol.1, no.8, March 1936 and the linocut Tycoon , 1931 (initialled 'C’ for Cunningham; copy owned Pat Counihan lent to S.H. Ervin black and white show). The Art Gallery of Western Australia has an original 1937 caricature of H.M. Jackson done for the Bulletin (957/0D54) and the Mitchell Library also owns original caricatures of various prominent men, now mostly forgotten.

Influenced by George Finey , the German Simplicissimus artists and the full-page cartoons of the American William Gropper in the left-wing journal New Masses , Counihan contributed to publications in London, Melbourne, Sydney, New Zealand (gallery of prominent New Zealanders, NZ Observer 1939-41), Warsaw and Prague. He began painting in 1941; he also made lots of prints. In Melbourne he was a foundation member of the Workers’ Art Club and of the Print Council of Australia (later president); for a time he was chairman of the Victorian Printmakers’ Group. He was one of ten artists in the 'Melbourne Popular Art Group’ who produced a folio of fourteen linocuts, Eureka 1854-1954 (Melbourne 1954), paying tribute to 'the stand of the Ballarat miners in the Eureka Stockade’ (copy Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery); numbers 2 (“Joe! Joe! The Traps are coming”), 4 ('The Magistrate’) and 5 ('On Bakery Hill’) are his.

Counihan’s contributions to Overland included writing and illustrating 'Scenes of Venice’, no.9 (autumn 1957), 20-21, 'Russian Scenes’, 10 (spring 1957), 20-21, etc.

IMAGE: 'Albert Namatjira’ 1959, linocut edn 50 (copies at Queensland Art Gallery [QAG]; Art Gallery of New South Wales; National Gallery of Australia; et al.). Counihan first met Namatjira in February 1954 and sketched his portrait. Five years later, when Namatjira was being prosecuted for providing liquor to his extended family, Counihan organised a letter of protest to the Menzies Government. In 1959, the year of this linocut, Counihan wrote passionately in Namatjira’s support in Tribune (1 April). Namatjira died three months after his release from prison (see Bernard Smith biog.). The print was included in Sotheby’s Fine Australian Paintings 22-23 April 1996, cat.344 with this information (estimate $500-800).

He also drew a caricature of Mick Armstrong of the Age with his nose being manipulated by the bosses to draw cartoons (ill. King, 1st edn, p. 136).

Worked for Worker or Common Cause cartoon of the 1930s? “An Important Conversation” (man and woman in street) and “In a Foundry” (working men in foreground and two bosses on other side of wall) are two of the six lithographs in his 1948 folio done in Simplissimus style (QAG). A folio of six linocuts (1959) includes “Peace means Life”, “Strontium 90”, “Hunger” and “An Old Man”. The Broadsheet (8 issues, QAG; donated Pat Corrigan) was a large single sheet of relief prints, screenprinting and printer’s type on contemporary social issues, produced in six issues at Melbourne from October 1967 to July 1971. No.1 (1967), screenprint with typset text on paper, edn. 372/1000, 63.5 × 50.5cm, anti-Vietnam 'Napalm Sunday – Coming next year – Ash Wednesday’, was illustrated by Noel Counihan et al. Counihan was also in no.4, 'Up You Cazaly’ (the football issue), 1968, and in no.6, 'A Time for Peace’, 1979. In 1998 Josef Lebovic was offering Counihan’s 'The Good Life’, 1968, pen and wash, for $7,500.

The 1999 S.H. Ervin b/w show included 9 works by Counihan from the Pat Counihan collection: the linocuts 'Tycoon’ (1931), 'Albert Namatjira’ (1959), 'Laughing Christ’ (1970) and 'Demonstrator’ (1978), the original ink cartoon 'The Crisis Facing Us – From the “Land of the Golden Fleece” to Monopoly Capitalism, Censorship and Repression’ (not dated), and three bronze cartoons done late in life (1970s?), 'Laughing Christ’, 'Rabelais’ and two versions of 'On the blower’, depicting a capitalist on the phone, one naked.

Writers:

Kerr, Joan

Date written:

1996

Last updated:

2007