Les Tanner
Encyclopedia
Les Tanner was an Australian cartoonist
and journalist
.
Les Tanner was born in Sydney
and began his career at The Daily Telegraph (Australia)
in 1942. Seconded from the cadet's room to the artist department, he worked under the mentorship of Art Director Tommy Hughes, Senior Artist Frank Broadhurst and William Edwin Pidgeon
, (aka WEP) a three-time Archibald Prize
winner. At 18, Tanner was sent to Japan
by the editor Brian Penton
to work at BCON - the Occupation Force Newspaper - as a cartoonist and journalist. Pidgeon had introduced him to the works of Hokusai
and other ukiyo-e
artists, including Utamaro
; and much of Tanner's spare time and staff sergeant's pay was spent buying as many woodblock prints as he could whilst there. It was in Japan, that Les Tanner also met his lifelong friend and fellow artist, Gus Mclaren
, when he was sent to interview him about his role in teaching art to the Japanese in Osaka.
On his return to Australia, Tanner joined the A.M. magazine as an illustrator before returning to the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, where he had his first assignment as a political cartoonist. His popularity grew and he was soon cartooning a week in review page each week, as well as being daily cartoonist. He later became Art Director at The Bulletin
. When he drew a controversial cartoon of Sir Henry Bolte
, then premier of Victoria, to illustrate Editor Peter Coleman
's article against capital punishment, Sir Frank Packer pulped the entire edition of the magazine. Packer had not thought about the airmail delivery of this edition to Melbourne, where the following morning it appeared on the news stands at Flinders St. Nor had he thought about subscription copies, so that many regular readers received the magazine despite his best efforts. Packer went on to ban a BBC television program on capital punishment due to air on GTV-9
- one of Packer's own television stations on 31 January 1967. But the cartoon and editorial achieved even greater prominence in the public domain when ABC television ran a story on it and the banned Channel 9 program that night, under the banner of censorship of the press, much to the glee of both Tanner and Coleman.http://www.nla.gov.au Throughout the fifties and sixties, Tanner was one of the few cartoonists of the era to regularly highlight the plight of the First Australians in Australia. As an advocate for social justice in all its forms, Tanner enjoyed challenging racism head on because it so offended him. He was never afraid to challenge the inequities of society and felt a moral obligation as a commentator to highlight them.
At the Daily Telegraph,Tanner not only drew his caricatures but often produced clay model caricatures, which were then photographed to immortalise the faces of such notables as Joseph Stalin and Sir Robert Menzies. When photographers could not get to Maitland to cover the infamous floods, Tanner was also airlifted in to draw the scenes- much to his chagrin.
Les Tanner won the "Cartoonist of the Year" award in London
in 1960 whilst working for the Daily Sketch
, followed by two Walkley Awards in Australia in 1962 and 1965 respectively.http://www.walkleys.com/history Back in Australia, he took his early interest in clay modelling to new heights, producing several tongue in cheek busts of Sir Robert Menzies.
When Graham Perkin
Editor of The Age
newspaper in Melbourne
offered him the position of Chief Political Cartoonist, Tanner agreed and for the next thirty years until he retired in 1997, he satirized politicians and gained a large fan base for his efforts. Once in Melbourne and in collaboration with Gus and Betty Mclaren, Tanner produced a series of toby jugs of Sir Robert Menzies, as well as a nice line in Sir Henry Bolte mugs- examples of which can be found at The National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. Loyal fans also flocked to his popular Saturday column "Tanner with Words".
In 1999, Les Tanner received a Golden Quill Award for "Lifetime achievement in the arts."http://www.melbournepressclub.com/HonourRoll1999 Apart from a prolific career as a cartoonist, Tanner co-wrote several books on black and white art. He made an animated film called Letter To A Vandal and was an actor and set designer for the New Theatre from 1946 until 1955. As a child he appeared in a number of films including comedian
George Wallace
's Gone to the Dogs, Our Gang, an RTA commercial co-starring Gloria Dawn and Forty Thousand Horsemen. In 1986, he worked as a voice coach for Sir Donald Pleasence for the film GROUND ZERO, which starred Colin Friels. Pleasence's character in the movie was a scientist who had contracted throat cancer, following nuclear testing at Maralinga. Les, a real life sufferer, was pleased to help Pleasence learn to operate a Servox speech aid for his role.
After his death, the Black and White Society of Australia described him as follows: "Les Tanner was pre-eminent as a social commentator in the medium of black and white art in 20th Century Australia."
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
and journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
.
Les Tanner was born in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
and began his career at The Daily Telegraph (Australia)
The Daily Telegraph (Australia)
The Daily Telegraph is an Australian tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, by Nationwide News, part of News Corporation.The Tele, as it is also known, was founded in 1879. From 1936 to 1972, it was owned by Frank Packer's Australian Consolidated Press. That year it was sold to...
in 1942. Seconded from the cadet's room to the artist department, he worked under the mentorship of Art Director Tommy Hughes, Senior Artist Frank Broadhurst and William Edwin Pidgeon
William Pidgeon
William Edwin Pidgeon, aka Bill Pidgeon and WEP, was an Australian painter who won the Archibald Prize three times....
, (aka WEP) a three-time Archibald Prize
Archibald Prize
The Archibald Prize is regarded as the most important portraiture prize in Australia. It was first awarded in 1921 after a bequest from J. F. Archibald, the editor of The Bulletin who died in 1919...
winner. At 18, Tanner was sent to Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
by the editor Brian Penton
Brian Penton
Brian Con Penton was an Australian journalist and novelist. He was born at Ascot, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland and educated at Brisbane Grammar School.-Writing career:...
to work at BCON - the Occupation Force Newspaper - as a cartoonist and journalist. Pidgeon had introduced him to the works of Hokusai
Hokusai
was a Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period. He was influenced by such painters as Sesshu, and other styles of Chinese painting...
and other ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e
' is a genre of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, featuring motifs of landscapes, tales from history, the theatre, and pleasure quarters...
artists, including Utamaro
Utamaro
was a Japanese printmaker and painter, who is considered one of the greatest artists of woodblock prints . His name was romanized as Outamaro. He is known especially for his masterfully composed studies of women, known as bijinga...
; and much of Tanner's spare time and staff sergeant's pay was spent buying as many woodblock prints as he could whilst there. It was in Japan, that Les Tanner also met his lifelong friend and fellow artist, Gus Mclaren
Gus McLaren
Gus McLaren was an Australian artist, animator and potter born in 1923.Active duty in the Australian army during World War 2 saw Gus serving in the pacific. Here he painted panels for a recreation tent for wounded Australian and allied soldiers- the work now resides at the Australian War Memorial...
, when he was sent to interview him about his role in teaching art to the Japanese in Osaka.
On his return to Australia, Tanner joined the A.M. magazine as an illustrator before returning to the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, where he had his first assignment as a political cartoonist. His popularity grew and he was soon cartooning a week in review page each week, as well as being daily cartoonist. He later became Art Director at The Bulletin
The Bulletin
The Bulletin was an Australian weekly magazine that was published in Sydney from 1880 until January 2008. It was influential in Australian culture and politics from about 1890 until World War I, the period when it was identified with the "Bulletin school" of Australian literature. Its influence...
. When he drew a controversial cartoon of Sir Henry Bolte
Henry Bolte
Sir Henry Edward Bolte GCMG was an Australian politician. He was the 38th and longest serving Premier of Victoria.- Early years :...
, then premier of Victoria, to illustrate Editor Peter Coleman
Peter Coleman
William Peter Coleman is an Australian writer/journalist, former politician and Minister of the Crown in the cabinets of Tom Lewis and Sir Eric Willis. Following Willis' resignation as leader he was made Leader of the New South Wales Opposition...
's article against capital punishment, Sir Frank Packer pulped the entire edition of the magazine. Packer had not thought about the airmail delivery of this edition to Melbourne, where the following morning it appeared on the news stands at Flinders St. Nor had he thought about subscription copies, so that many regular readers received the magazine despite his best efforts. Packer went on to ban a BBC television program on capital punishment due to air on GTV-9
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
- one of Packer's own television stations on 31 January 1967. But the cartoon and editorial achieved even greater prominence in the public domain when ABC television ran a story on it and the banned Channel 9 program that night, under the banner of censorship of the press, much to the glee of both Tanner and Coleman.http://www.nla.gov.au Throughout the fifties and sixties, Tanner was one of the few cartoonists of the era to regularly highlight the plight of the First Australians in Australia. As an advocate for social justice in all its forms, Tanner enjoyed challenging racism head on because it so offended him. He was never afraid to challenge the inequities of society and felt a moral obligation as a commentator to highlight them.
At the Daily Telegraph,Tanner not only drew his caricatures but often produced clay model caricatures, which were then photographed to immortalise the faces of such notables as Joseph Stalin and Sir Robert Menzies. When photographers could not get to Maitland to cover the infamous floods, Tanner was also airlifted in to draw the scenes- much to his chagrin.
Les Tanner won the "Cartoonist of the Year" award in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1960 whilst working for the Daily Sketch
Daily Sketch
The Daily Sketch was a British national tabloid newspaper, founded in Manchester in 1909 by Sir Edward Hulton.It was bought in 1920 by Lord Rothermere's Daily Mirror Newspapers but in 1925 Rothermere offloaded it to William and Gomer Berry The Daily Sketch was a British national tabloid newspaper,...
, followed by two Walkley Awards in Australia in 1962 and 1965 respectively.http://www.walkleys.com/history Back in Australia, he took his early interest in clay modelling to new heights, producing several tongue in cheek busts of Sir Robert Menzies.
When Graham Perkin
Graham Perkin
Edwin Graham Perkin was an Australian journalist and newspaper editor.Perkin was born at Hopetoun, Victoria, elder son of Herbert Edwin Perkin, baker, and his wife Iris Lily, née Graham, both Victorian born. Graham grew up at Warracknabeal and was educated at the local high school...
Editor of The Age
The Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...
newspaper in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
offered him the position of Chief Political Cartoonist, Tanner agreed and for the next thirty years until he retired in 1997, he satirized politicians and gained a large fan base for his efforts. Once in Melbourne and in collaboration with Gus and Betty Mclaren, Tanner produced a series of toby jugs of Sir Robert Menzies, as well as a nice line in Sir Henry Bolte mugs- examples of which can be found at The National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. Loyal fans also flocked to his popular Saturday column "Tanner with Words".
In 1999, Les Tanner received a Golden Quill Award for "Lifetime achievement in the arts."http://www.melbournepressclub.com/HonourRoll1999 Apart from a prolific career as a cartoonist, Tanner co-wrote several books on black and white art. He made an animated film called Letter To A Vandal and was an actor and set designer for the New Theatre from 1946 until 1955. As a child he appeared in a number of films including comedian
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...
George Wallace
George Wallace (Australian comedian)
George Wallace , was an Australian comedian, vaudevillian and film star. He was one of the most famous and successful Australian comedians on stage and screen in the twentieth century.-History:...
's Gone to the Dogs, Our Gang, an RTA commercial co-starring Gloria Dawn and Forty Thousand Horsemen. In 1986, he worked as a voice coach for Sir Donald Pleasence for the film GROUND ZERO, which starred Colin Friels. Pleasence's character in the movie was a scientist who had contracted throat cancer, following nuclear testing at Maralinga. Les, a real life sufferer, was pleased to help Pleasence learn to operate a Servox speech aid for his role.
After his death, the Black and White Society of Australia described him as follows: "Les Tanner was pre-eminent as a social commentator in the medium of black and white art in 20th Century Australia."
External links
- http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an13685596 Photograph of Les Tanner by Virginia Wallace-Crabbe
- http://www.bulletin.ninemsn.com.au The Bulletin
- http://www.nla.gov.au National Library of Australia
- http://www.theage.com.au The Age
- http://www.wepidgeon.com WEP