Design and Art Australia Online

cartoonist, caricaturist and sculptor, was born in London on 13 June 1908 [according to Phillip Jones in Australian obituary [obit.], or on 16 April 1906, Sydney Morning Herald [ SMH ] obit.]. After a boarding school education – which he hated – he began a business career with a City of London firm of traders and bankers, who sent him to Japan when he was 19. There he became fascinated with calligraphy 'and spent more time observing artists at work than he did negotiating contracts and dealing with shipping and letters of credit. It was in Japan, aged 21, when he first published a caricature in a newspaper, Ashisha Shimbun’ (Jones).

He left the firm, went home briefly then came to Sydney in 1927, 'where he was entranced by the beauty of the women’ (Jones). He soon met and married one – Dorothy Mae Horsley – and it became necessary to earn a living. Jones states that 'he sent a sample caricature to The Bulletin’. Elsewhere (including Wallish) the story is more specific, stating that in 1929 when the Depression was enveloping Sydney he spotted a prominent politician laying a wreath at the foot of the Cenotaph in Martin Place, sketched a caricature on the back of an envelope and sent it to the Bulletin . This led to a cheque and a job as a caricaturist and political cartoonist.

At the Bulletin Frith, who had a 'perky pointed nose and a ready laugh like an exploding steam-engine’, was second-in-command on the art staff after Ted Scorfield , according to Douglas Stewart (28), though Ned Wallish’s obituary claims that 'within two years he became the principal caricaturist and co-art editor with Scorfield’. He remained at the Bulletin for 15 years. A Bulletin cartoon dated 1932, The Opening of the Bridge , shows Captain de Groot on his horse (ill. King, 124). Wartime Bulletin cartoons include: You Mustn’t Grumble! (on the Home Front); New Order Birthday Ceremony (with a naked Mussolini suckling a Nazi sausage dog Romulus and Remus style); “Stop muckin’ about an’ get on with the job!” (female tram conductor aloft holding onto a cord); “Whether we like it or not, Captain, we’re known as Shiny – er – Seats!” (two female army officers); “That Mr. Dobell? Are you requiring a model?” (distorted woman in 'Manpower’ office with officer on telephone) published 23 August 1944 (original ink drawing, National Library of Australia [NLA] R9039 reproduced Kerr, 1999).

Other Bulletin cartoons of 1937-38 and 1944 were notable. 148 original drawings and 262 caricatures by Frith done 1930-44 are in the Mitchell Library Bulletin collection, including lots of US film stars, Albert Namatjira (no.5) and D.H. Souter (nos 92-93). Frith noted in retirement that 'there was hardly an individual of any importance in the country or who came to the country that I didn’t meet for the purpose of drawing’ (quoted Jones). In December 1944 [1948 according to Jones – but this is wrong] Frith was appointed the first staff cartoonist on the Sydney Morning Herald . When he was invited to make the move, Norman Lindsay wrote to the Bulletin editor regretting the loss of his great friend and remarking that Frith had inspired many of Lindsay’s cartoons over the years. His letter was included in Frith’s 2001 retrospective (Old Parliament House, Canberra).

From then on cartoons were a regular feature of the SMH leader page, e.g. one featuring Chifley, Dedman, Ward, Calwell and fear of socialism, published 6 June 1945 (ill. Souter, 263). '“Cocky” Calwell (a parrot) appeared in numerous cartoons repeatedly screeching “CURSE THE PRESS”’ (both obits). Frith also did many cartoons of Ben Chifley who, according to Wallish, commented when he lost the battle to nationalise the banks that he could handle Menzies in the House and the huge advertisements of the banks in the press but had no answer to Frith’s cartoons.

'During his Bulletin years he developed the knack of modelling in plastercine portrait-cum-caricature heads of famous people, some of which he then cast in metal’ (Wallish). In 1936 he modelled the head of fellow Bulletin cartoonist G.K. Townshend , an expatriate Kiwi. His large bronze head of Chifley, completed 24 hours after Chifley died in 1951, is in the National Portrait Gallery [NPG]. Mostly he made small plasticine models, primarily to be photographed and published in the Bulletin (as caricatures). Apart from a few favourites he later had cast in bronze they were then destroyed. Surviving examples held in private collections and included in his retrospective included small busts of Doc Evatt and Sir Frank Beaurepaire.

NLA has his original cartoon Passports (R8778) dated 6 March 1949 and published in the Sun-Herald (Melbourne, acc. Telnet NLA Public Access catalog – but surely Sydney?). A Sydney Savage, elected in 1944, he drew a fat man in evening dress mounted on a kangaroo with a semi-naked blonde in blackface in its pouch for the club’s 'Corroboree Lubras Night’ 1946 (# ill. Ashton, 56) and a white pair making themselves up blackface for the 1944 Ladies’ Night Programme (Ashton # ill.124).

At the invitation of Sir Keith Murdoch, Frith left the SMH for the Melbourne Herald and Weekly Times in February {December according to Wallish} 1950. His cartoons then appeared there for 18 years (to 1969). Cartoons dated 1957 and 1958 from the Melbourne Herald – Positively no connection and El Matador – are ill. King, 170. NLA has 7 ink originals, including “I assure you this’ll hurt, Doc…” published 9 August 1957 and “ Back to your classrooms…” published 29 August 1957, plus caricatures of Edouard Borovansky (c.1957?) and H.V. Evatt (1957). 'Asked the secret of being a successful caricaturist and cartoonist, Frith replied: “Politicians. … Given faces like Jack Lang, Billy Hughes, Joe Lyons, Bob Menzies, Ben Chifley, Gorton, McMahon, Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawk [sic], all one needs is a pencil and paper”’ (Wallish).

In 1972 Frith began modelling Toby Jugs for Bendigo Pottery. Included in his 2001 retrospective were jugs in the form of Ned Kelly (in armour), Kingsford Smith, Albert Namatjira (with boomerang handle), a unique terracotta Norman Lindsay (with a nude woman handle) never cast, PM R.G. Menzies, Don Bradman (terracotta in retrospective and cast version in NPG 2001, on loan from p.c), Henry Lawson, et al.

After Frith retired he did cartoons and picture stories for his grandchildren, featuring koalas, giraffes and other animals. Some were displayed in a special children’s section of his 2001 retrospective, 'From Grandpa’, with a child’s wooden desk he had painted with cartoon animals.

In May 1994 Shirley McKechnie interviewed Frith for the NLA’s Oral History Project (tape TRC 3056). Despite failing eyesight he drew almost until his death. A heavy smoker and 'fond of the occasional drink’, he died in Melbourne aged 94 ( SMH obit 12 October) or 92 (acc. Jones), on 21 September 2000. His wife, Dorothy Mae, predeceased him. He was survived by their children, Jacqueline (Mrs Jackie Milne) and Jeffrey, who sponsored the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts’ retrospective exhibition, a brush with politics: the life and work of John Frith , at Old Parliament House, Canberra in the second half of 2001.

Writers:

Kerr, Joan

Date written:

1996

Last updated:

2007