Description

Extended Data

DAAO URL

https://www.daao.org.au/bio/george-dunstan

Birth Place

Daylesford, Victoria, Australia

Biography

cartoonist, signwriter and journalist, was born in Daylesford, Victoria, on 13 August 1876. He came to Sydney at the end of the century, where he married Alice Colliver, a young actress from Melbourne who worked in John Fuller’s vaudeville circuit – for a time as a 'quick sketch artist’, according to their daughter Sarah (as recorded by Allan Dunstan (AD), Zif’s grandson). They lived at 93 Kippax Street and George began working in King Street as an illustrator for John Norton’s Truth and Sportsman . According to his biographer and grandson Alan Dunstan, Zif’s first published cartoon was probably 'Imaginary Interviews by our idiotic interviewer: No.1: George Reid’, Truth 19 February 1899. It was initialled 'G.D.’, the only time he is known to have used this signature. The next cartoon he drew for Truth , 'Bring your own fruit to the Domain’, published on 30 September 1900, 3, was signed 'Zif’, a pseudonym invariably used henceforth ('Zif’ is the second month in the Hebrew calendar, states AD). A lampoon of 'George Reid in George Lauri’s “Orchid” costume’ (a knight in armour) appeared In Borrowed Plumes , a set of colour postcards by Zif called Theatrical Travesties , published in the NSW Bookstall Co’s 'Art Series’ (n.d.), one of the few attempts at political satire on Australian postcards acc. Cook (p.74). Other artists who designed postcards for the company were: J. Muir Auld (a set on bush characters), Leslie Board (theatrical, comic and glamour subjects), Mabelle Edmonds (at least three series of glamour girls), Margaret Flockton (Australian native flora), Violet Johnston (set of race horses), Norman Lindsay, E. J. de Lough ('Popular Plays’), Muriel S. Nicholls (children’s cards) and Percy Spence. Zif drew the cover of Jury magazine of 12 April 1902, a parody of the well-known Pears’ Soap advertisement 'You Dirty Boy’. 'Public Opinion’ is the woman washing with disinfectant a boy labelled 'John Norton’. Another parody of 'You Dirty Boy’ was by George Dancey for Melbourne Punch 30 May 1899 (filthy George Reid being washed by Australia) ill.Margaret Anderson et al., When Australia Was A Woman WAM 1998, cat. 24. Zif’s series of six illustrations after Hogarth, 'The Prostitute’s Progress’, was published in Truth on 18 December 1904. Zif’s heroine was a bush girl who comes to the city aiming to get 'a nice frock’ and ends up dying in a Chinese opium den. By 1904 the Dunstans had two daughters, Sarah and Renée, and were renting a narrow workers’ terrace at 28 Morehead Street, Redfern. Zif’s occupation on Sarah’s birth certificate was given as 'journalist’, presumably his major source of income. He may therefore have written some of the articles that his drawings accompanied, Dunstan concludes. Between 1904 and 1911, however, he was drawing for several publications including Theatre (cover and drawings), the Australian Worker (only one cartoon known, i.e. 'Advertising Australia’ 28 January 1909, ill. King II, p.81 [re misleading advertising of utopian conditions for immigrant workmen]), the Bulletin (mainly theatrical caricatures and cartoons, although his daughter claims he was also the magazine’s theatre critic) and the Sunday Times (comic illustrations on the thespian lifestyle, says AD). Within three years of the birth of their third and last child, George, in 1911 the marriage had broken up because of Zif’s socialism. Henceforth Alice and the children had little contact with him. By 1912 Zif was working for the Socialist Federation of Australasia on the International Socialist , e.g. 'A Bundle the Badger Couldn’t Break’, published 9 March 1912, 1. The first illustration ever published in the International Socialist was Zif’s 'New Year Gifts for the People’ and when the paper ceased publication in April 1922 his was the last Australian cartoon used. In between, he was its most prolific cartoonist, producing over 90 cartoons out of a total of 220 images during the decade, e.g. 'The Seven Ages of a Conscript’ 1912 (an important pre-WWI drawing). Over 30 cartoons appeared between June and December 1914 – his most prolific period – most in the top centre of the front page. All carried the address, ’115 Goulburn Street, c/- the Marxian Press’. Because of the War Precautions Act, many black and white artists were driven off newspapers between December 1914 and March 1916, including Zif (says AD). Then in 1921 the International Socialist became the International Communist in solidarity with the Soviet Bolsheviks, collapsing in 1922 when the Comitern recognised Jock Garden’s rival Australian Communist party as the only legitimate one. Zif contributed to the Common Cause (1920s-1930s), most notably a 1920s strip 'Bill Mug’. In 1922 he moved to Cessnock and set up as a signwriter. He always remained a Communist and continued to advance the cause by painting trade union banners. Writers: Staff Writer Date written: 1996 Last updated: 2007

Born

b. 1876

Summary

Early to mid 20th century political cartoonist and signwriter.

Gender

Male

Died

None listed

Age at death

None listed