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cartoonist, caricaturist and journalist, was born Frederick Collis in Melbourne on 2 February 1887. He worked as a cartoonist and comic writer and illustrator from about 1908 to the early 1930s using the name 'Ted Colles’ and other pseudonyms, including 'Dunno’, 'Det Selloc’ (Ted Colles spelt backwards), 'Kolles’ and 'Gussie Gumboil’. He was living in Sydney when he drew a Ted Colles cartoon, Drought Striken , a pun on two dry swaggies ('empties’) at a railway station purchasing a ticket (original Norman Lilley col. Mitchell Library [ML]). It was published as a single column gag in Norman Lilley’s comic magazine Vumps (Sydney, 1908).

In the 1910s Ted Colles was contributing to the Bulletin , the Sunday Times and other Sydney magazines. He drew the cover of the Comic Australian of 13 January 1912: 'Police Protection Wanted; [Miss Nellie Stewart proudly boasts that in her recent charity campaign she did not – even once – experience defeat at the hands of a business man]; Mr Glitter, the Cash King, once completely routed three armed robbers. Here we see him wavering before the mere fire-flashes of deep-blue eyes!’ Another cartoon for the Comic Australian was 'The Passing of the Principal “Boy”’ illustrating a story of a pantomime 'boy’ to be played by a man, published 6 January 1912.

Some of Colles’s political cartoons for the Bulletin were full-page. He also collaborated with the permanent editorial cartoonists, Norman Lindsay and 'Hop’ , in the preparation of others. Most supported tariff protection for Australian industries and attacked all political parties. A cartoon that attracted particular attention just after the outbreak of war depicted a woman labelled 'Germania’ (representing the common people of Germany) bearing on her shoulders, with great difficulty, a huge cross labelled 'Militarism’. Captioned 'The Iron Cross. (A well-known decoration in Germany.)’; it was published in the Bulletin on 1 October 1914. A far more naturalistic Bulletin cartoon signed 'Kolles’ (his other cartoons are signed 'Ted Colles’), published 29 January 1914 (ML Px*D272/22), is very different in style: Not Dressed for Company (title changed from 'Unpreparedrest’)/ Rev. G. Green: “Ah well, no doubt it’s for the best, my dead woman…doubtless your poor dear husband was prepared to meet his Maker?”/ Widow: “Nun-no. He wasn’t Mr Green. He wuz in his dungarees.” Another 'Kolles’ original of 1914 is also in ML.

Colles enlisted in the 3rd Light Horse Field Ambulance at Melbourne in November 1914 and served on Gallipoli and in Egypt and France. He was one of three combatant artists at Gallipoli (the others were David Barker and Frank Crozier) who were organised by C. W. Bean into helping produce The Anzac Book from the Front. All three provided artwork, along with W.O. Hewitt, C. Leyshon-White and many non-professional artists who served at Gallipoli. The book, published by Cassell’s London in 1916, was immensely successful. Colles’s contributions were a short story, a black and white drawing and several coloured drawings, two of which became very well known: Abdul , a portrait of a typical Turkish soldier illustrating a poem by Bean, and Something to Remember Us By , a Turk’s face with a black eye and sticking plaster (originals Australian War Memorial). The Sydney Mail of 22 June 1917 noted: 'Some of the illustrations, especially those by Ted Colles, are well worth the price of the book’. From the Australian Front , published in 1917, contained sketches by Colles as well as by Will Dyson, Frank Crozier, Vernon Lorimer, et al. (Moore ii, 54).

As well as drawing cartoons, Colles wrote numerous articles about the war for the Bulletin . Its 'Red Page’ of 18 January 1917 noted: 'One of the surprises of the war has been the development of Ted Colles, a contributing Bulletin artist, into a brilliant unofficial war correspondent.’ He also illustrated a small book of comic verse about the thoughts of a mentally afflicted young man by the New Zealand and Sydney poet Boyce Bowden, Sand in the Head (Melbourne: Alexander McCubbin, 1920). Some critics condemned the book as being in bad taste, though the Bulletin praised Colles’s drawings as being 'full of skill and humor’.

After the war Colles continued to work as a freelance journalist and artist for Sydney and Melbourne newspapers, including Smith’s Weekly , Lone Hand , the Melbourne Herald and a Melbourne weekly The Midnight Sun , e.g. Fashions as seen in the A.I.F. by Ted Colles , 1920. He also contributed articles and drawings to young people’s magazines like Pals and Prize Packets Weekly , as well as to the aviation, nautical and radio journal Sea, Land and Air . His cartoons include: 'HE: “Gee! There’s one of them cubist pictures!”/ SHE: “Strewth! What a terrible place Cuba must be!” ' Beckett’s Budget , 21 June 1927, 35. He continued to draw for the Bulletin and also contributed several short stories. One was published in a special issue of 10 December 1921 'containing work by the 100 best artists and writers of Australia’. The ML Bulletin collection has 11 drawings by Colles dated 1925-27 and three caricatures dated 1921 and 1923 (including one of Samuel Garnet Wells, artist).

Colles was appointed a staff journalist on the Sydney Sun in 1922. As editor of the newspaper’s children’s supplement Sunbeams , he encouraged children to write and draw and gave artist Jim Bancks much assistance in the creation of his full-page comic 'Ginger Meggs’. Colles died in Sydney on 6 January 1952, three weeks after his wife, and was survived by their son Peter F. Collis, a Sydney journalist.

Writers:

Kerr, Joan

Date written:

1996

Last updated:

2007