“No other magazine in Australia could match The Bulletin as a nursery for talent. Many young artists, writers and poets nurtured in a climate of encouragement by talented experts became household names…I needed more nurturing than most…No words can express deeply enough the gratitude I owe to people like Norman Lindsay and Ted Scorfield. If you like they were the gardeners who tended the plant until it could stand by itself.”
John Frith, c. 1975.
In 1929 a chance event launched Frith’s career as a professional cartoonist. Unable to find work during the Great Depression, he found himself in a crowded political meeting in Sydney’s Martin Place:
“Politics at that time meant nothing to me but faces I couldn’t resist, and the speaker was a beauty.”
John Frith, c. 1975.
Frith quickly sketched a caricature on an envelope, put it back in his pocket and walked away. The sketch found its way into the hands of Henry Prior, Editor of The Bulletin, and Frith was soon permanently employed.
As well as producing his own cartoons, Frith was initially responsible for writing gags for contributing cartoonists, as well as supplying ideas to The Bulletin artist Norman Lindsay. Frith remained with The Bulletin for 15 years and captured a turbulent period of Australia’s history from the beginning of the Great Depression to the closing years of World War II.
