Design and Art Australia Online

black and white artist, was born on 15 February 1881 at Moonta Mines, SA, second of the three surviving children of Cornish parents, James Pryor, a mine agent, and Caroline Jane, née Richards. He grew up in Moonta and began working for the Wallaroo and Moonta Mining and Smelting Company at the age of 13, under H.R. Hancock (Oswald Pryor wrote the Australian Dictionary of Biography entry on Hancock). After night classes at the Moonta School of Mines, Pryor became a mechanical draughtsman then from 1911 manager of Moonta Mines cementation works. In 1902-3 he attended the SA School of Design, Painting and Technical Art under H.P. Gill . On 8 January 1908 he married Mabel Dixon; they had one son. He was an accomplished organist at Moonta Methodist Church, later Kensington Park Methodist Church, Adelaide.

Having drawn caricatures signed 'Cipher’ for the Adelaide Critic , edited by C.J. Dennis from 1897 (attributed to Pryor by Joe Harris, ill. Harris, 142), Pryor moved to Adelaide in 1919 or 1920. He later wrote to William Moore:

It was while I was drawing for the Critic that C.J. Dennis, its then editor, made the suggestion that the Cousin Jack miner was a good subject for pictorial treatment. I did not adopt it for several years, as I thought Cornish humour would not be widely understood. I was surprised to find later that it had a very wide appeal, letters of appreciation coming from out-back prospectors and mining camps in all parts of Australia and New Zealand, and occasionally from overseas. (Moore ii, 120)

Also signed 'Cipher’ are caricatures of George Reid, Alfred Deakin et al in the Melbourne Clarion of 1904 (ill. Lindesay Way We Were [ WWW ], 53) and cartoons in the 1907 Adelaide satirical journal Gadfly (washerwomen joke, ill. Lindesay 1979, 134; 'advice for his own good’, i.e. two country bumpkins in the city, 12 February 1908, 8). 'Cipher’ also contributed to the 1907-09 Bulletin , eg Deakin to the 'Out of Work’ about 'Protection’ and 'New Protection’ policemen 1907, and caricature of SA Premier J. Verran 1909 (ill. Harris, 169, 216). 'Cypher’ also drew small illustrations of a mining town (Moonta?) in 1907.

'Oswald Pryor’ had cartoons published in Quiz 9 October 1901 (his first published cartoon according to the ADB ), in Lone Hand on 1 June 1909, 205, 1 December 1909, 161 and 1 March 1910, 495, as well as in various other magazines including the weekly Comic Australian (Sydney 1911-13) and SA Wireless Monthly . With J.A. Pearce , he was staff artist on the Adelaide News in the late 1920s-1930s, succeeding Hal Gye (Moore ii, 122) in drawing the weekly cartoon (see anthology Cornish Pasty , 1950, republished 1961). 'Oswald Pryor’ cartoons also appeared in Aussie , e.g. “What is your husband doing?”/ “'E’s done it; 'e came out yesterday.” n.d. (ill. Lindesay, WWW , 97). Later he ran the small SA distributing office for the Sydney Bulletin . But mostly Pryor drew for the Bulletin . Fifty years… notes that his Bulletin cartoons are '...mostly Cornish, or “Geordie”, subjects derived from Moonta (South Australia)’. The ML Bulletin collection has 163 original cartoons of 1906-22, 143 of 1930-36, 121 of 1937-41, 118 of 1941-60 and 36 caricatures of 1920-33 and n.d., mostly of South Australian topics and subjects.

Early Bulletin cartoons signed 'Oswald Pryor’ include Labour’s Real Identity ('Red Objective’) n.d. (courtesy Oswald Pryor) and The Enfant Terrible (Communism interrupting Labor wooing Miss Elector) n.d. (ditto), reproduced Harris p.289. Cartoons done in his later Bulletin years when he was freelancing from his home in Stanley Street, Leabrook, Adelaide, which are signed 'Pryor’ or 'Oswald Pryor’, include: Our Arbour Day (large Mitchell Library [ML] Bulletin original Px*D507/109) published 13 November 1924; Another Convert… , pen and ink political cartoon (ML SV*/CART/7) about Tom Walsh, Secretary of the Australian Seamen’s Union (ASU) during the 1925 Shipping Strike; 1926 driver joke (ill. Rolfe, 285); 1931 Another Little Misunderstanding (ill. Rolfe, 80): '“Parson do be tryin’ to strike good treble [female singer].”/ “What! And him so set and all against horse-racin’!”’

Pryor retired to Canberra and lived with his son Lindsay Dixon Pryor, Professor of Botany at Australian National University. His last cartoon was published when he was 85. He died at Queanbeyan on 13 June 1971. His grandson Geoff Pryor , political cartoonist on the Canberra Times , 'recalls many hours spent studying the works hung on his grandfather’s walls – works by Bulletin greats like Ted Scorfield, Norman Lindsay and David Low’ ( Pickering & Pryor 2002, p.7).

Writers:

Kerr, Joan

Date written:

1996

Last updated:

2007