Design and Art Australia Online

cartoonist, caricaturist and comic strip artist, was born in Campsie (NSW), son of a council plumber and national secretary of the Plumbers’ Union who was killed in an accident in 1915 and Catherine MLC, the first woman member of an Australian Upper House. His elder brother, Dan , also became a cartoonist. Jim went to school at Lewisham Christian Brothers until 1924, when aged 14 he began work as a copy boy on the Daily Guardian . Later that year he transferred to Smith’s Weekly , where he worked as a copy boy to Stan Cross and began to draw cartoons. He also studied at Julian Ashton 's Sydney Art School for six years (1924-30) while working at various jobs, including being box office attendant at the Sydney Stadium. This led to a brief boxing career, which included winning all five bouts as a welterweight at Sydney Stadium. He also played tennis. In 1926 he had some basic art tutoring from the head artist of Fox Films – which he paid for, although he worked there unpaid for two years.

In 1928 Russell became Australia’s youngest political cartoonist, being employed on Sydney’s Evening News until the paper folded in 1931. Then he briefly went to the Referee as sports caricaturist until he rejoined Smith’s (on the art staff) the same year. Examples in Smith 's include: (re swearing man) '“Did George ever take lessons in golf?”/ “No, but he speaks it beautifully, doesn’t he?”'26 May 1934, 23; '“Father, dear father, come home to us now” – 1935 version’ (son pleading with father to leave a milk bar) 26 January 1935; two girls at a party '“He’s a smooth liar, isn’t he?”/ “Smooth? He’s streamlined”’ 13 July 1935, 10; (couple walking along swinging tennis rackets) '“How do you like married life?”/ “It’s alright when the wife’s out”’ 1935; and 'The Shape of Things to Come’ 11 March 1939, 12. Two undated originals in the Cross collection were probably also done in the 1930s: (shop assistant to leering customer) 'She: Could I show you something?/ He: I’ll bet you could’ and (chorus girls with orchestra and two men in evening dress in audience) “That’s my girl, second from the right! Can you see her?”/ “Most of her.” In 1939 he temporarily abandoned cartooning and accompanied the Australian Davis Cup team to the US as a tennis writer. The team won the cup as WWII broke out. Russell tried to enlist in the RAAF, unsuccessfully.

When Stan Crossleft Smith’s in 1940 Jim Russell succeeded him as art editor and also took over drawing Cross’s comic strips, including You and Me , which he renamed Mr and Mrs Pott , from 1950 The Potts . This internationally syndicated strip has long been identified with Russell, particularly his new character the bachelor brother of Mrs Potts, Uncle Dick introduced in 1957 after an editorial directive banned domestic rows. Often seen as semi-autobiographical, Uncle Dick was apparently initially based on the character Sheridan Whiteside in the film, The Man Who Came to Dinner , 1941 (played by Monty Woolley, apparently based on American critic Alexander Woolcot), although Russell later wryly admitted: 'I’ve grown more like Uncle Dick and Uncle Dick has grown more like me. My wife [Billie, who died in 1995] says he is me.’ In 1990 Russell established a world record of 51 years continuously drawing a comic strip. The Potts (retitled Uncle Dick in the USA) was syndicated to some 40 newspapers in Australia, the US, NZ, England and India, he was still drawing it when he died, on 15 August 2001. (Strips continued to appear in the SMH for several weeks afterwards).

During WWII Jim Russell not only enlisted the Potts into the war effort, he drew two weekly satiric features, Adolph, Musso, and Herman (which made fun of Hitler, Goering and Mussolini) and Schmitt der Sphy . Both were reputedly resented enough in Germany to get Russell on a Hitler hit-list, especially the former. He won the Voluntary Services section prize in the NGV’s 1945 exhibition , Australia at War . Jim occasionally used the pseudonym 'Mick Newton’ for his comic strips Kanga’s K.O. Comics (1949) and for a later version of Wanda Dare in Tex Morton Comics (see Shiell ed. – attributes the earlier Wanda Dare to older brother Dan Russell). When Smith 's closed in 1950, Russell followed Cross to the Melbourne Herald and Weekly Times Ltd. He also wrote film reviews and other articles, was a radio and TV personality, a publisher of dancing and music magazines and ran two travel agencies. For most of the last years of his life he lived at Sylvania.

In 1924 Jim Russell was one of the founders of the original Black and White Artists’ Club (see Harry Weston for full list of members) and organised some of the early B/W Artists’ balls. He succeeded Cross as president in 1955-57, then again in 1965-73, with Doug Albion in the interim. He won the Club’s first Silver Stanley in 1985 for his contribution to black and white art, was elected life member and patron in 1986, 'smocked’ in 1993 on his return from overseas where he was elected a member of the National Cartoonists’ Society of the USA, the only Australian ever to receive this honour. In 1978 he was awarded the MBE, then later the AM. Russell organised a ABWAC tour to the National Cartoonists’ Society’s annual Reuben awards at La Jolla, California in May 1994 and was said to be organising another to Boca Raton, Florida, for the Reuben awards and convention in May 1995 ( Inkspot 24, summer 1995, 12). He was actively cartooning and contributing to professional and charity events until the day before he died, aged 93. Indeed, he had agreed to go to Engadine to judge the L.J. Hooker primary and secondary schools’ cartoon competition and to conduct a workshop on cartooning on the day he died, said Lindsay Foyle, but had to cancel because he was unwell. He was survived by a daughter, three grandchildren and a great-grandson.

In the late 1970s the Herald donated a large collection of Potts strips of the 1960s-70s to the SLNSW. One Russell cartoon of the 1950s, and others (possibly for the Bulletin ) are in the SLNSW ML. 'Hullo, Rhubarb! What are you doing these days?’ was donated to ML by the wife of a Smith’s reporter in 1999 along with over 20 other originals and a copy of the final issue, 28 October 1950, signed by all the cartoonists.

Writers:

Kerr, Joan

Date written:

1996

Last updated:

2007