Alexander Gurney Explained

Alex Gurney
Birth Date:15 March 1902
Birth Place:Stoke, Devonport, United Kingdom
Death Place:Elwood, Victoria
Nationality:British
Area:Caricatures, Cartoons, Comic Strips
Write:y
Pencil:y
Ink:y
Notable Works:Ben Bowyang,
Bluey and Curley
Spouse:Junee Grover (m. 16 June 1928)

Alexander George Gurney (15 March 1902 – 4 December 1955) was an Australian artist, caricaturist, and cartoonist born at Pasley House, Stoke, Devonport (now Stoke, Plymouth), England,[1] famous for his creation of two famous Australian comic strips: Ben Bowyang, and Bluey and Curley.

Family

The son of William George Gurney (1866-1903),[2] and Alice Birdie Gurney (1872-), née Worbey, who had married in Portsmouth on 29 May 1901,[3] Alexander George Gurney was born on 15 March 1902 at Pasley House, Stoke, Devonport (now Stoke, Plymouth), England.[1]

His father and his mother (born in Hobart),[4] along with Alex settled in Hobart, Tasmania. Soon after, the ship upon which his father, a steward in the merchant navy, was serving, went missing at sea (off the Canary Islands);[5] and his father was presumed dead. On 2 July 1908 his mother (always known as Birdie, rather than Alice) married again, to James William Albert Hursey (1866–1946).[6]

Gurney married Junee Grover (1909–1984) on 16 June 1928 at Christ Church, South Yarra. Junee was the daughter of the journalist Montague "Monty" MacGregor Grover (1870–1943),[7] and Ada Grover (1877-1928), née Goldberg.[8] [9] [10] [11] Alex and Junee Gurney had four children: John (1929–2004),[12] Jennifer Anne (1932–2004), Susan (1937–2003),[13] and Margaret (1943–), the eminent Melbourne artist.[14]

Education

Gurney was educated at Macquarie Street State School, where his prowess with a pencil soon became evident, regaling his classmates with caricatures of their faces perched atop incongruous bodies.

Leaving school at age 13, he found employment at an ironmonger's shop, followed by a couple of other jobs, before embarking on an electrical apprenticeship with the Tasmanian Hydro-Electric Commission, in the expectation of becoming an electrical engineer. This entailed taking night classes at Hobart Technical College,[15] but it was not long before his attention was drawn to art classes conducted at the same institution by Lucien Dechaineux (1869–1957).[16]

Artist

Added to his skills as an artist, his capacity for the observation of his fellow humans made him a successful portraitist and caricaturist;[17] by 1918 he was submitting work to The Bulletin, Melbourne Punch and Smith's Weekly. In 1923, he was awarded first prize at the Kingborough Agricultural Show for "an original pencil drawing".[18]

In 1926 he published a book of his caricatures of eminent Tasmanians, Tasmanians Today, the first book of its kind ever published in Tasmania.[19] [20] Also in 1926, he began working for newspapers, briefly in Melbourne for the Morning Post,[21] then freelanced in Sydney until he landed a job with the Sunday Times, then for a Labor paper The World, followed by the Daily Guardian, The Sydney Mail,[22] then to Adelaide with The News in 1931.[23] Throughout his lifetime he was renowned for his generous habit of giving the originals of his caricatures, cartoons, and comic strips to anyone who asked.[24]

Cartoons and comic strips

During this time he created several comic series; Stiffy and Mo (based on the radio comedy starring Nat Phillips and Roy Rene) for Beckett's Budget; and The Daggs for the Sunday Times.

In 1932, he created "Fred, the Football Fan" for the Adelaide Mail.[25]

When he moved to the Melbourne Herald in 1933 (as cartoonist for their Sports pages),[4] he started a series Ben Bowyang (based on the C J Dennis creation, and the earlier caricature by Samuel Garnet Wells[26]) for that paper.[27] [28] In 1934 he became their feature cartoonist.[29]

By 1939, his fame was such that, not only was he endorsing Red Capstan, cork-tipped, "special mild" cigarettes, he was also supplying the advertisement's art-work as well.[30]

Bluey and Curley

In 1939 he created the characters for which he became famous: Bluey and Curley.[31] He applied for the copyright registration of "Bluey and Curley" on 16 October 1939; and his application was granted on 9 November 1939 (Australian Copyright No.6921).[32] The strip, about a pair of soldiers, Bluey, the Great War veteran who had re-enlisted, and Curley, the new recruit to the A.I.F.[33]

Bluey and Curley first appeared in the "Picture-News" magazine. It was transferred to The Sun News-Pictorial in 1940, from whence it was syndicated throughout Australia,[34] New Zealand and Canada.[35]

The strip was widely appreciated for the good-humoured way it depicted the Australian "diggers" and their "mateship", as well as for its realistic use of Australian idiom of the day.[36] During the war, he was accredited as a war correspondent,[37] and he visited army camps throughout Australia and New Guinea to ensure authenticity for his strip.[38] While in New Guinea he contracted malaria and was incapacitated for some time.[39]

Gurney was in England in June 1946, as part of an Australian Press Syndicate sent specifically to view the Victory Parade. As well as sending caricatures of various eminent people involved in that parade back to Australia for distribution through the press, he also used the opportunity to have Bluey and Curley attend the parade, and a number of his Bluey and Curley comic strips reflected that event.[40] Gurney's visit to London, and his version of events, as seen through his Bluey and Curley comic strip, was also historically significant for another reason: it was the first time that a newspaper comic strip had ever been transmitted from England to Australia by radio.[41] The strip lost some of its appeal and readership when the pair returned to "civvy street".[4] After Gurney's sudden death in 1955, the strip was continued by Norman Rice, and then by Les Dixon.

Associations

Gurney was a member of the Returned Sailors' Soldiers' and Airmens Imperial League of Australia (RSS&AILA), now known as The Returned and Services League of Australia (RSL), the Black and White Artists' Club, now known as The Australian Cartoonists' Association, and the Savage Club.[42]

Death

Gurney died suddenly, of heart disease, on 4 December 1955. He had been ill for several months, and had collapsed in his motor car parked outside his residence at 7 Merton Avenue, Elwood.[43]

His funeral service, conducted by Rev. Selwyn Ide, at St Stephen's Church of England, Gardenvale, on Tuesday, 6 December 1955, was attended by "more than 500 journalists, artists and friends".[44]

His art

Copyright

Publications

Illustrator

See also

References

External links

Notes and References

  1. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article9581875 Births: Gurney, The Mercury, (Saturday, 3 May 1902), p1.
  2. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/12262287 Deaths: Gurney, The (Hobart) Mercury, (Saturday, 4 April 1903), p.1.
  3. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article9570327 Marriages, The Mercury, (Saturday, 20 July 1901),p.5.
  4. Ryan, John Panel By Panel Cassell Australia 1979
  5. Gurney, (2006), p.2.
  6. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12668182 Marriages, The Mercury, (Wednesday, 2 September 1908), p.1
  7. http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A090127b.htm O'Neill, S., "Grover, Montague MacGregor (Monty) (1870–1943)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1983.
  8. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article5933913 Births: Goldberg, The Argus, (Saturday, 18 August 1877), p.1.
  9. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article9166903 Marriages: Grover—Goldberg, The Argus, (Monday, 24 May 1897), p.1.
  10. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article157819438 Journalist Gets Divorce, The National Advocate, (Friday, 26 September 1913), p.2.
  11. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article168734037 On the Mountains: Editor Grover Divorces his Wife, The (Sydney) Truth, (Sunday, 28 September 1913), p.2.
  12. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article58853288 The Talk of the Town: Ink Round the Think!,The (Adelaide) Mail, (Saturday, 30 June 1934), p.9.
  13. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/11052269 Births: Gurney, The Argus, (Saturday, 27 March 1937), p.21.
  14. https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=yKsUAAAAIBAJ&sjid=HbQDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7098%2C2242946 Preparation for Artist's Ball, The Age, (Thursday, 14 December, 1961), p.15
  15. News: Bluey's Creator Was Hobart Student . . CLXX . 25,149 . Tasmania, Australia . 28 July 1951 . 19 February 2017 . 4 . John Hetherington . National Library of Australia.
  16. http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A080286b.htm Haller-Griffits, A.E., "Dechaineux, Florent Vincent Emile Lucien (1869–1957)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1981.
  17. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article29110821 Amusements: Coonah Coon Company, The Mercury, (Tuesday, 25 August 1925), p.10.
  18. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article23615586 Kingborough Show: Art Work, The Mercury, (Tuesday, 3 April 1923), p.2.
  19. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article29447365 Advertisement, The Mercury, (Friday, 11 June 1926), p.11.
  20. For other examples of his caricatures, see: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59829726, and http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article58623687.
  21. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article29453123 Personal, The Mercury, (Friday, 30 July 1926), p.6.
  22. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16672383
  23. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59833414
  24. For example, The Talk of the Town:The Tax Paradox, The (Adelaide Mail, ((Saturday, 7 October 1933), p.7; http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28322207.
  25. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59308146 Meet Fred, the Football Fan, The [Adelaide] Mail, (Saturday, 30 July 1932), p.10.
  26. Wells, S.G. (1923), "Ben and Bill", The (Melbourne) Herald, (20 June 1923), p. 6.
  27. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article36458416 Meet Ben Bowyang, The [Adelaide] Advertiser, (Monday, 20 November 1933), p.14
  28. Some samples of early Ben Bowyang strips: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1151322 (Note that, in this example, Gurney's own calligraphy has been over-typed with a Queensland reference); http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1152133.
  29. For examples of his work for the Melbourne Herald as a feature cartoonist, see A Modern Gulliver, The (Launceston) Examiner, (Saturday, 7 December 1935), p.17, Letting The Rest Of The World Go By, The (Launceston) Examiner, (Saturday, 24 August 1935), p.14, and The Grim Reaper, The (Launceston) Examiner, (Tuesday, 3 October 1939), p.5. Often, the message of his cartoons provoked deep thought; for example, Car Accidents, The (Launceston) Examiner, (Wednesday, 5 July 1939), p.6.
  30. This topical advertisement, which was published in the Brisbane Courier-Mail on the day after the 1939 Melbourne Cup, shows the winning trainer and jockey turning down the Melbourne Cup Trophy for a Red Capstan cigarette, plus an endorsement by, and photograph of, Alex Gurney. The advertisement also appeared in a number of other newspapers during the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival; e.g., The Launceston Examiner on the day before the Caulfield Cup, and The West Australian on the Wednesday before the Melbourne Cup (and the day after), and in the Hobart Mercury, the day after the Cup.
  31. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article26154717 Memento for Cartoonist, The Mercury, (Tuesday, 20 November 1945), p.11.
  32. http://www.exploroz.com/Forum/Topic/77443/Sunday_History_Photo__Au.aspx?ky=&p=%2FForum%2FDefault.aspx%3Fpn%3D4 Doug T., Sunday History: Bluey and Curley, (4 April 2010).
  33. Compare the simpler graphic style of the earliest, war-time strips (http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article44896616), with the much later far more developed style of the 1955 version (http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59702279 plus http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4531381).
  34. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article44891544
  35. It was syndicated throughout Canada as "Bluey and Curley of the Anzacs: https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Da5TAAAAIBAJ&sjid=cjgNAAAAIBAJ&dq=bluey%20and%20curly&pg=6626%2C3097468; https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=k61TAAAAIBAJ&sjid=YDgNAAAAIBAJ&dq=bluey%20and%20curley&pg=1322%2C146741.
  36. http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A140392b.htm Panozzo, S., "Gurney, Alexander George (Alex) (1902–1955)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, (1996).
  37. Web site: 070827 | Australian War Memorial . 10 July 2011 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120926195057/http://cas.awm.gov.au/photograph/070827 . 26 September 2012 . dead . dmy-all .
  38. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article47704568 What is Happening in Your Home State: South Australia, Army News, (Thursday, 2 November 1944), p.2
  39. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article48952038 We're Also Rationed, The Courier-Mail, (Wednesday 6 September 1944), p.3.
  40. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59356880 Bluey and Curley,The (Perth) Sunday Times, (Sunday, 16 June 1946), p.6.
  41. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59356273 Bluey and Curley by Radio from London, The (Perth) Sunday Times, Sunday 9 June 1946), p.2.
  42. Web site: Alexander George Gurney :: Biography at :: At Design and Art Australia Online.
  43. https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=3FMRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=d5UDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5291%2C698971 Famous Strip Creator Dead, The Age, (Monday, 5 December 1955), p.3.
  44. https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=3VMRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=d5UDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6499%2C876875 Death Notice: Gurney, The Age, (Tuesday, 6 December 1955), p.14
  45. The royalties from this book went to the Food For Britain Fund: About Books: Humour, The West Australian, (Saturday, 10 January 1948), p.5; Food For Britain Fund Closing "About Christmas", The Sydney Morning Herald, (Thursday, 10 August 1950), p.1.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Alexander Gurney".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.