Design and Art Australia Online

cartoonist, was born in Kaiwarra, Wellington (NZ), of a Scottish father and an Irish mother. He came to Australia as a boy. After various casual jobs he was engaged by

“old King Cole, the famous bookseller, in whose employ he perpetrated his first work of art. Seizing a green plaque and a sample box of colors, he manufactured a blue-haired lady with a yellow ochre complexion and the brightest of rose-madderning lips. This he displayed in the window, with an intimation on the lady’s chest that such a plaque, without the lady, would cost Only One Shilling. George Dancey, Melbourne Punch cartoonist, wandering down Collins-street, was struck with the colour, and induced Maclean to join the Melbourne National Gallery Art School. The rest was a struggle to “get accepted” by various papers that pay something for illustrations; and Maclean went into the field as a free-lance, and remains there. ( Bookfellow 1 December 1912, 317)”

Maclean believed that line should be prominent in pen drawings and tried to express character in small simple line sketches said to be sometimes 'worthy of Forain’, e.g. joke about doctor asking nurse about patient “Has he got any money?” ( Bookfellow 317) and 'The Man of Property’ (crying about land tax; ibid 318). He also worked in pen and charcoal, e.g. A Monument is But a Melancholy Pleasure (ibid, 317). By 1912 he had drawn many compositions featuring street children and his anonymous Bookfellow biographer (probably the editor A.G. Stephens) thought his style would suit London Punch . In any case, he added, editorial indifference to black and white art meant that Maclean would 'have to leave Australia to achieve himself; already he has wasted ten years’.

Maclean was living in Melbourne’s Sun Buildings with Norman and Lionel Lindsay in the late 1890s; he drew gags for the Melbourne Rambler in 1899. He was in Sydney c.1904 when Ted Dyson was worried about his brother Bill ( Will Dyson ) being led astray by him, since 'despite the masquerade he made of being an artist, [Maclean] was really one of those faithful beings created by a beneficent Providence to be the drunkard’s friend’ (quoted McMullin 34). He was still in Sydney when his cartoons were published in the weekly Comic Australian in 1911-13. He also contributed to the Bulletin , e.g. The Idolized and the Ideal. 'Cynthia [reading Society newspaper with female street friends]: “Yah! 'nother one of these 'ere dead crook societies fer admiring pot-bellied earls and knock-kneed dukes, and other sich things. They kin 'ave them on their own. But fer a real 'andsome, proper sort of man, gimme our butcher” 1900 (ill. Lindesay 1979, 124); and Dry Gin! [Aboriginal woman drinking from a bucket] 1929 (ill. Rolfe 197). He did cartoons on Aboriginal subjects for Smith’s Weekly 1922 and gag cartoons for Aussie .

By 1917 Maclean was living in Brisbane, where he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force. He served time overseas and in 1919 spent a short period at the Slade School of Art. Maclean returned to Australia in 1920.

Maclean was a foundation member of the Society of Australian Black and White Artists in 1924 along with 24 other male cartoonists, mainly from Sydney (see Harry J. Weston ). All 25 contributed to the Society’s first publication commemorating the visit of the US Fleet in 1925.

Writers:

Kerr, Joan

Date written:

1996

Last updated:

2012