illustrator, was born in Sydney and brought up and educated in Bowral. An accident with horses when she was fifteen kept her away from school for a year and left her deaf. During this time, she read a good deal and decided on a career in art. After spending two years studying at East Sydney Technical College, she worked for an advertising agency and gained useful experience in practical illustrating skills. Then came the war and she joined the Women’s Land Army.
Having already tried her hand at writing and illustrating a children’s book, in 1941 she succeeded in getting Ambrose Kangaroo published by Australian Consolidated Press. This was very successful and led to further commissions; for several years it ran as a comic strip in a Sydney newspaper. The high point was reached when the American publisher, Scribners, decided to bring out an American edition. No doubt they liked the freshness and novelty of the book and the progress of the war, with the influx of Americans to this area, had created an interest in Australia.
Her publisher suggested that she should do a picture book about a child’s life in this country. This resulted in Susan Who Lives in Australia (New York 1944) with English and American editions following. The author-artist was still very young—only twenty-eight—when Susan was published and her drawing is a little unfinished. She revised her work and used several varying styles in subsequent Australian editions of Katherine (as Susan was renamed in the English and Australian editions).
MacIntyre’s considerable versatility may be seen from her success in different spheres. She worked as a feature writer for the Age , Sunday Telegraph and Australian Women’s Weekly , and later as a television cartoonist for the ABC. Her early children’s books were ahead of her time in Australia, which was one reason why they were welcomed so warmly. Her later picture books with their humour and lively drawings continued to achieve success in America and retained their popularity here, being reprinted several times. However, the broad, poster-like style she developed and her slapstick humour divided critical opinion about their quality. (This may also have reflected increased critical awareness in response to the improvement in the quality of children’s books in general, even if few picture books were yet being published here). The Children’s Book Council Award for Picture Book of the Year to Hugh’s Zoo in 1965 was a controversial one.
But a dozen or more highly original picture books created when there was such an obvious lack of local books for young children firmly established the importance of MacIntyre’s contribution to the children’s literature of this country. She later went on to write several novels for adolescents with serious social content, published both in Australia and overseas.
In 1951 Elisabeth MacIntyre married John Roy Eldershaw. They had one daughter.
