Design and Art Australia Online

cartoonist, was born in Sydney on 11 June 1963, the youngest of three children. She has drawn all her life and made caricatures of her classmates at school. While completing her BA in Visual Communications at Sydney College of the Arts, she worked at David Jones and met Jenny Coopes as a customer, who agreed to look at her work. This led to a spot as temporary replacement at the Sydney Morning Herald and her first published cartoons in 1984. She went to Paris for three years in 1985, where she worked as an illustrator and studied. After returning to Sydney in 1987, she began illustrating children’s books and in 2002 had illustrated 17 of them, including her own Enzo the Wonderfish.

Wilcox became resident cartoonist for the 'Stay in Touch’ back page in the Sydney Morning Herald from January 1989, following Reg Lynch and Matthew Martin (the latter again an occasional contributor in c.1993-97). Since 1993 she has been employed as the political cartoonist on the Age. Her small cartoons, and occasionally her large editorial cartoons, also appear regularly in its sister Fairfax publication, the Sydney Morning Herald. (Since late 1995 she has from time to time filled in for Alan Moir and provided the main cartoon on the Herald editorial page.)

A member of the Australian Black and White Artists’ Club, Wilcox won Stanleys for Best Editorial/Political Cartoonist and Best Single Gag Artist in 1994 (see SMH 31 October 1994, 5). With Kerry Millard she was runner-up for the Single Gag Artist’s Stanley in 1996, won by Glen Le Lievre. Her cartoons, Keep my seat warm published SMH 3 January 1997, Try your luck, Conscience Vote [on euthanasia] and Downer’s Dilemma published Age 15 January 1997, SMH 9 June 1996 & SMH 27 June 1997 were exhibited in Bringing the House Down: 12 Months of Australian Political Humour (Canberra: National Museum of Australia/ Old Parliament House exhibition, 1997), cats 6, 30, 35, 59. She was runner-up to Bruce Petty in the 1998 Bringing the House Down for the best cartoon in the exhibition. In the 1999 show she had 4 cartoons hung and one of Howard, Beazley and Meg Lees building sandcastles used on the cover of the catalogue. She was presumably was also in the 2000 show, while her three originals shown in the 2001 Bringing the House Down were: Your street, Queue jumper (2 lifesavers watching drowning swimmer, with one saying: “Better leave 'em. Could be a queue jumper”, published Age 31 August 2001) and War and Peace (both illustrated NMA website).

Several Wilcox cartoons were included in both 1999 b/w art exhibitions curated by Joan Kerr, Craig Judd and Jo Holder at S.H. Ervin Gallery and State Library of New South Wales. “The government will legislate that Australia was uninhabited./ We need that certainty”, published SMH 1 January 1997 (ML PXA 806/2), was in the 'Land’ section of the SLNSW exhibition; “I’m single and the child’s a bastard just like his father” (ML PXA 806/8), published SMH 1997, was in 'Women’; and Australian Police Joke (ML PXA 806/9), published SMH 14 October 1997, was in 'Crime’. Then one day, much to nearly everyone’s surprise, the High Court, by a majority of 4 to 3, ruled that politicians were, as it turned out, unconstitutional, published SMH 12 August 1997, was included in the SHE exhibition (ill. Kerr). 10 originals, including all the above, were purchased from the artist by the SLNSW in January 1999: see PICMAN. Wilcox spoke in a panel discussion on 'the great (neglected) tradition’ at SHE on 21 February 1999 with Joan Kerr and Patrick Cook. She was one of the 9 artists included in the Bunker Gallery’s women cartoonists’ exhibition in 2002-3. Her originals included Dag Pride March ('Men Who Wear Sandals With Socks’, 'Old Ladies With Shopping Trolleys’, 'Boys Without Attitude’, 'Women Who Dress For Comfort’, 'Stamp Collector’, 'Mugaccini Drinkers’, etc) and a gag about executive payouts (both ill. in catalogue).

Writers:

Kerr, Joan

Date written:

1996

Last updated:

2007