Design and Art Australia Online

cartoonist, illustrator and painter, was born in Auckland, New Zealand. He came to Sydney with Joe and Guy Lynch in 1922 and was soon one of Sydney’s best-known cartoonists and bohemians, leading a colourful but impoverished existence (Kirkpatrick) – a great friend of Phil Lindsay. He was married three times: to Mabel (their daughter is Leiba Stewart), to Kath McShine (brief and disastrous) and to Nancye (Nance) for 35 years (who helped Kirkpatrick with his book, when she was in a nursing home).

“Unk” White contributed to the Bulletin, Melbourne Punch, Beckett’s Budget – including various covers – Aussie and other papers, especially Smith’s Weekly in its early days (examples of 2 April 1923, 16, and 2 June 1923, 6). An original drawing in the Sue Cross collection, evidently done for Smith’s, shows a lot of feet beside a rowing boat labelled 'What happened when the beer fell overboard./ A suggested solution of the Marie Celeste mystery’ (ill. Rainbow, p.56). Three other originals – 'Jus’ put yerself in my shoes lady, an’ yer won’t 'ave a care in the world’, 'Hey! Who th’ell yer shovin’ and 'Now then, that’s just wher you put your foot in it’ – were donated to the Mitchell Library (ML PXD 840)in 1999 by the wife of a former Smith’s reporter along with c.20 other originals and 2 copies of the final issue (28 October 1950) signed by all the cartoonists.

Unk White was the inaugural secretary of the Black and White Artists’ Club, founded in 1924 (see Harry Weston). When living in Europe for 'study and experience’ c.1927-30 (France then London), he sent illustrations back to the Sydney Mail, eg 'Unk White, Sydney Artist, in Paris', 30 July 1930. He drew for the Tatler, Sketch and Bystander in London, apparently mainly doing animal drawings. An original 'Unk’ White dated 1932 – when he was back in Australia, mainly drawing for the Bulletin – is at ML PXD 764. In 1936 he revisited Europe and made a sketching tour of Mexico.

White drew a comic strip, 'The Adventures of Blue Hardy’, for Pix (e.g. 10 September 1938). He also contributed to the Sydney Morning Herald at some point when he was freelancing. A 'brilliant penman’, he contributed many cartoons to the Bulletin as a freelance from the 1920s, although he never became a staff artist (Blaikie, 91). At the Bulletin office he was 'always conspicuous for his height and his continual uproar’, said Douglas Stewart (p.36). He was known for the glamour girls he drew, e.g. And Safer Too. 'Birdie’s gentleman friend: “Why ever did you coax your husband to buy such a small car?”/ Birdie: “Oh, it’s more comfortable – you see, there’s no place for private detectives to hide in the back”’ 1929 (ill. Rolfe, 182); (very large original, ML PxD478/44) '“Sure you know about any bad habits your boy might have.”/ “I ought to. I taught him all he knows”, published 21 May 1934. Others include domino-playing men, Bulletin 1935 (no ML original) and Unk’s popular 'moo cows’, e.g. 1939 (ill. Lindesay 1994, 24).

WWII Bulletin cartoons include: “Jus’ sharpenin’ up Cleopatra’s Needle in case any of them paratroops arrive”, 1940; (two servicewomen) “May I borrow your lipstick for a moment, general?” 1940; (heavily tattooed male soldier) “Well, if a man’s got t’ be vaccinated, do it where it won’t show”, 1940; (two old fellows knitting) “Forget the club tonight, John – we must do all we can for the brave girls defending us”, 1941; (female general) “Don’t call ME sweetie!” 1941; (woman naval officer re swearing parrot) “I bought it to teach me the language”, original ML (PxD 548/169) published 25 June 1941; '“Gott in Himmel! I’m sure someding hit me”’ 1941 (Aussie digger 'disguised’ as a classical statue biffs Nazi officer); (two artists with portfolios labelled 'Van Gogh’ and 'Gaugin [sic]’ roller-skating down the [National] Art Gallery of New South Wales’ courts with Poynter & Riviere evident of the walls) “We’ll get through the old stuff much quicker this way” 3 December 1941, 14 (original ML Px*D548/105 included in Artists and Cartoonists in Black and White); “Blime, them Russian blokes are doin’ good-oh!” (male ballet dancer reading of 'Russian Victories’), 1942.

Unk became an accredited war artist in 1944 and saw active service in New Guinea and the Pacific Islands. The collection of originals in the Frank Johnson papers (ML PX*D68) includes 'Darwin “Tit-Bits” [boobs] and a very racist 'Dutch New Guinea’ of 1944, showing a woman with boobs to her knees captioned, 'this is no Dobell exaggeration mark you’. The Henry Lawson collection of 14 drawings and cartoons 1899-1948 (Pic Acc 1444 vol.2) includes work by Unk White.

From the late 1960s Unk White drew many of the architectural drawings in the Rigby Sketchbook series, e.g. John Bechervaise, Ballarat and Western Goldfields Sketchbook (Adelaide, 1970). He also painted in watercolours. Indeed, Kirkpatrick believes that his Paddington landscapes from the 1960s and his late Spanish watercolours are his 'crowning masterworks’ (p.358). He died in March 1986.

Portraits of Unk White: good self-portrait head from the Artists’ Atomic Ball program 1946 (illus. Lindesay 1994, 26); small younger one (ill. Stone, 9); very good Ted Scorfield cartoon of Unk White and “family” (i.e. wife) as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Bulletin 1 April 1936, 14; 'Unk White Caught in the Act [of drawing a glamour girl] by Ron Broadley’ (large Frank Johnson original, ML Px*D69/no.702) with poem, the second verse of which reads:

“So here’s to Unk’s glamorous pin-up

A joy that has beauty forever

With a figure that’s fine, & her chin up

Who the Hell cares if she’s clever.”

H. A. (Henry) Hanke did a painting of Unk White 'in fencing togs’ (unlocated; it is mentioned in Unk White, 'My rendevous with reminiscence’, Second Laugh Anthology 1940, p 22, and was possibly the portrait exhibited in the 1935 Archibald Prize). Photo at the 1938 Artists’ Ball, Pix 23 April 1938, 34, titled 'Artist Unk White’s famous cow took the Trocadero floor to be slain by his creator, in Panamanian rig, after an hilarious “bull fight”. Unk White recently returned from Central America, has been to Spain.’ Another photograph, Pix 6 May 1939, 21, is captioned: 'Turkish Delight! Unk White, with false nose on chin, wonders whether he will remove his necklet of frankfurts and set up a hot-dog stand. He is a well-known artist.’

Writers:

Kerr, Joan

Date written:

1996

Last updated:

2007