cartoonist, who was always known as 'Smee’ after her baby cry 'It’s me!’, was the youngest daughter of Hugh McCrae and his wife, Annie Geraldine (Nancy) née Adams, and sister of Mahdi McCrae. She drew for various Sydney magazines in the early 1930s, including Aussie and the Bulletin (included in c.1930s list of Bulletin Artists ML Px *D557 pt 5, '18’). Her Aussie cartoons include: [in kitchen] '“You’ll soon get into our ways, cook: we’ll want lunch promptly at one o’clock because we usually go out motoring at two.”/ “Oh, then I’ll have to leave the washing up until we come back”’ 15 September 1930; (old and young woman in night clothes) '“Do you always look under the bed first, Aunty?”/ “Not always, I generally pray first”’ 15 January 1931.
In 1977 Josef Lebovic (collectors’ list no.62A) was offering Smee’s The Veteran c.1930, pen and ink and pencil, signed l.r., 24 × 16.7 cm, for $390, captioned: 'Brown (Welcoming schoolmate after the holidays): “My word, Johnson, you’re lookin’ fit!”/ Johnson (Resignedly): “Huh! Not so bad for sixteen!” (with drawing of an older man and a young woman trying on a coat verso). Smee also drew a couple of minor illustrations in the New Triad edited by her father.
Smee McCrae, now Mrs A.J. Harington Morris, was alive and fit at a McCrae reunion in 1994. Craig Judd interviewed her in 1999.
- Writers:
- Kerr, Joan
- Date written:
- 1996
- Last updated:
- 2007
