cartoonist, painter, writer, art critic, art historian and gallery director. His cartooning expertise came from a study of the Bulletin , Simplissimus and Jugend in the Melbourne Public Library, plus some help from Will Dyson . He contributed drawings, as well as journalism and art criticism, to Australian newspapers from 1927 and wrote and illustrated a book of jingles, So This Was The Spot (Melbourne, 1934). He was art critic for the Argus in 1944-47 and after the war became art editor of the Australasian Post , to which he also contributed cartoons, e.g. an uncaptioned one showing two women with babies in prams riding on the back of a crowded tram, 1946 (ill. Lindesay 1979, 272). He apparently used cartoons and illustrations by several of the German ' Dunera boys’ in the Post c.1945-46, including Frederick Schonbach, Erwin Fabian and Klaus Friedeberger, as well as local artists like Albert Tucker .
From 1951 to 1981 McCulloch was art critic on the Melbourne Herald . He was also associate editor (art) for Meanjin in 1951-63. He published several authoritative books on Australian art, especially The Encyclopedia of Australian Art (1st edn 1968). Continued after his death by his daughter Susan McCulloch Uhlin, it remains the standard general reference for Australian art from colonial times to the present day.
- Writers:
- Kerr, Joan
- Date written:
- 1996
- Last updated:
- 2007
