Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1880 Alfredtown, Australia

Died: 1938 London, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1910

Other name/s: Will Dyson

Biography

Illustrator and political cartoonist Will (William) Dyson was born in Alfredtown, near Ballarat, Australia on 3 September 1880. Largely self-taught, he began his professional career as a caricaturist for the Sydney Bulletin and Lone Hand. In 1903 he replaced his elder brother Ambrose, also a cartoonist, at the Adelaide Critic, contributing coloured caricatures. In 1909 an exhibition of his caricatures was held at Furlong's Studios in the Royal Arcade, Melbourne. The same year he married fellow Australian, the illustrator Ruby Lindsay.

The following year the couple left for London, where Dyson challenged the tradition of homegrown illustrators, producing satirical drawings that ‘set new standards in forthrightness, skillful draftsmanship and the sheer savagery of his humour’ (Mc Donald 2006, p. 32). The turning point in his career came in 1912, when he was appointed cartoonist-in-chief to the new daily Labour newspaper, the Daily Herald, whose editor gave him complete editorial freedom. A convinced socialist, Dyson had developed his radical views in his youth, when the conflict between labour and capital was dominating the Australian political arena. His cartoons, championing the working man with passion and vigour, were sharp, often ferocious barbs against social inequality and people’s suffering. Their impact was amplified further by whole-page reproductions in the Daily Herald. Dyson’s drawings appealed to workers and intellectuals alike. The workers admired his boldly drawn figures representing clear symbols of the noble, young worker versus his oppressive employer, whom Dyson drew and labelled as ‘Fat’: a man in formal dress with a huge paunch, often waving a cigar and resting on a pile of moneybags. The intellectuals, by contrast, admired Dyson’s witty captions, while G.B. Shaw, G.K. Chesterton and H.G. Wells described him as the most talented and forceful cartoonist Britain had known for decades (McMullin 2010, p. 40). In 1916 Dyson was appointed an official Australian war artist and served in the Australian Infantry Force as a lieutenant. While living with Australian soldiers on the Western Front, he was twice wounded but continued producing his compassionate drawings of humanity under fire. In 1915 he reached his widest popularity with the publication of Kultur Cartoons satirising the German Kaiser and militarism in Europe. The drawings were also exhibited at the Leicester Galleries in London to public and critical acclaim. The Observer noted: ‘Mr. Will Dyson’s series of war satires […] are not only remarkable for their trenchant and bitter humour, but reveal a black and white artist who, using the brush […] with the same easiness and expressiveness of the pen, will have to be reckoned with as one of the leading illustrators of the present time’ (The Observer 1915, p. 7). H. G. Wells wrote that ‘Mr. Dyson perceives in militaristic monarchy and national pride a threat to the world, to civilisation, and all that he holds dear, and straightaway he sets about to slay with his pencil (The Sketch 1915, p. 5).

The First World War had a profound impact on Dyson's life. He was badly affected psychologically by the horrors he had witnessed and by the premature loss of his wife Ruby in 1919 due to the Spanish flu pandemic – a tragedy from which he never fully recovered. In the same year Dyson published his most famous cartoon, which foretold the Second World War and was reproduced in newspapers across the world. Three weeks after the draft treaty of Versailles had been presented to the Germans, the cartoon depicted a small child, labelled '1940 Class', weeping unseen behind a pillar while Geroges Clemenceau, the French prime minister, accompanied by fellow signatories, David Lloyd George, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, and Woodrow Wilson, remarked, 'Curious! I seem to hear a child weeping'. After the war Dyson rejoined the Daily Herald but, dissatisfied, he resigned in 1921. In 1925 he returned to Australia, where he worked for a while for the Melbourne Punch and Herald. However, frustrated by his editors and unhappy with his own work, he turned to painting and etching.

Dyson returned to London in 1930, where he joined a much less radical Daily Herald. He exhibited a series of satirical drypoints, Our Intellectuals, at St George's Gallery, to great critical acclaim. The Manchester Guardian noted that Dyson’s use of drypoint ‘has given a new flexibility to his line and tone, and immensely strengthens his design. He shows an undeniable gift for the medium, and now ranks among the etchers who matter’ (The Manchester Guardian 1930, p. 7). Dyson’s last cartoon, published on the day of his death, represented two vultures perched on a crag watching General Franco's planes bombing a defenceless Barcelona, the caption reading: 'Once we were the most loathsome things that flew!'. Will Dyson died in Chelsea, London, England in 1938. Dyson's works are held in several UK public collections: around 500 of his Daily Herald cartoons are preserved in the Cartoon Research Centre, University of Kent, and his work is also represented in the British Museum and Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Related books

Ross McMullin, Will Dyson: Australia's Radical Genius (London: Scribe 2016)
Ross McMullin, 'Will Dyson: Australia’s Radical Genius', Papers on Parliament No. 59, April 2013, pp. 35-57
Geoffrey Newmarch, Ruby and Will: the Art of Ruby Lindsay and Will Dyson, exh. cat. (Creswick: Creswick Museum, 2008)
John McDonald, 'Will Dyson: Australia's Radical Genius', Sydney Morning Herald, 13 May 2006, p. 32
John Jensen, 'Dyson, William Henry', in Colin Matthew ed., Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2004)
John Jensen, Will Dyson, 1880-1938: Cartoons, Caricatures, Drawings and Satirical Prints (Canterbury: Centre for the Study of Cartoons and Caricature: 1996)
Carol M Mills, 'Expatriate Australian Black and White Artists: Ruby and Will Dyson and their Circle in London 1909-1919', working paper no. 33 (University of London: Sir Robert Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, 1988)
Ross McMullin, Will Dyson: Cartoonist, Etcher, and Australia's Finest War Artist (London: Augus & Robertson Publishers, 1984)
Will Dyson's Wartime Works, exh. cat. (Canberra: The Memorial, 1975)
John Jensen, '“Curious! I seem to Hear a Child Weeping!”: Will Dyson (1880-1938)', 20th Century Studies no. 13/14 (December 1975)
‘Satirising The ‘Moderns’: Dyson's View Of ‘Our Artists’’, The Sketch, Vol. 152, 26 November 1930, p. 405
'The Art of Will Dyson', The Tatler and Bystander, Vol. 118, 26 November 1930, p. 377
‘Two Cartoons By Mr. Will Dyson’, The Manchester Guardian, 10 November 1930, p. 7
Chenil Galleries, `The German View: One Hundred Drawings by Will Dyson`, exh. cat. (London: Charles Chenil & Co.: 1916)
Will Dyson, Kultur Cartoons (London: Stanley Paul, 1915)
C. K. S., ‘A Literary Letter: the Truculent Brigade’, The Sphere, Vol. 60, 9 January 1915, p. 56
'Slaying Militarism With The Pencil', The Sketch, Vol. 89, 6 January 1915, p. 5
‘Mr. Will Dyson’, The Observer, 3 January 1915, p. 7
'Mr. Will Dyson's Cartoons', The Manchester Guardian, 4 January 1915, p. 6

Public collections

Selected exhibitions

Satirical London. 300 Years of Irreverent Images: The Art of Satire, Museum of London (2006)
Will Dyson 1880-1938: Caricatures, Cartoons, Drawings and Satirical Prints, Australia House, London (1996)
Our Intellectuals. Satirical Etchings by Will Dyson, St George`s Gallery, London (1930)
Imperial War Museum: the Nation's War Paintings and other Records, Royal Academy (1920)
Australia at War: Will Dyson`s Drawings from the Western Front, Leicester Galleries (1918)
War and Peace Including War Pictures Painted for and Lent by the Commonwealth of Australia, Royal Academy (1918)
The German View: One Hundred Drawings by Will Dyson, Chenil Gallery, Chelsea, London (1916)
War Satires, Leicester Galleries (1915)
Leicester Galleries (1914)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [William Dyson]