'In and Out of Society' (1934).
Bill Pidgeon, A.K.A. Wep, was a mid-20th century Australian political cartoonist, painter and occasional comic artist. As a cartoonist, his signature series were 'The Trifling Triplets' (1926) and 'In and Out of Society' (1933).
Early life and career
William Edwin Pidgeon was born in 1909 in Paddington, Sydney, as the youngest son of a leaded-window maker. Pidgeon's father knew cartoonist Fred Leist personally, who'd become a strong graphic influence on the boy's work. In 1913, Pidgeon's father died and he, his mother and older brother John moved to Trelawney, his grandfather's home until returning to Paddington after a few years. Pidgeon went to the Glenmore Road Public and Sydney Technical High School and briefly spent some time at J.S. Watkins art school and East Sydney Technical College. His first comics appeared in the latter school's paper, where he first used his initials as a pseudonym, 'Wep'. Among his graphic influences were painters Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Hokusai, Hans Holbein the Younger, Henri Matisse, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Peter Paul Rubens, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Rembrandt van Rijn and Vincent van Gogh. His favorite cartoonists were Peter Arno, Henry Mayo Bateman and Miguel Covarrubias.
Despite showing talent, Pidgeon originally wanted to become an electrical engineer. After graduation in 1925, he worked at Wunderlich Ltd, Redfern, where he came into contact with William Dobell, an advertising draughtman.
'In and Out of Society'.
Editorial cartooning career
Pidgeon was only 16 years old when he became a newspaper cartoonist for the Sunday News. His uncle was a dentist and one of his patients happened to be the editor of the paper. From 1924 on, he signed his work with the pseudonym Wep, derived from his initials. When the Sunday News folded in 1927, Pidgeons editorial cartoons ran in other Sydney papers, like Arrow, The Bulletin, The Daily Guardian, Referee, Smith's Weekly, The Sun, To-Day, Wireles Weekly and The World. He was also the house political cartoonist of The Daily Telegraph until January 1949. Between October 1931 and November 1932, he was briefly featured in The World, the short-lived daily newspaper of the Australian Workers' Union.
In 1937, Pidgeon joined the Australian Consolidated Press. During World War II, he was a war correspondent for their papers, sketching the war conditions in New Guinea and Borneo. He was art critic for The Daily Telegraph, between 1944 and 1947.
Australian Women's Weekly
To general audiences, Pidgeon was most recognizable as one of the house illustrations of the Australian Women's Weekly. He worked on the initial dummy of the magazine when it was introduced on the market in 1933. Each issue featured comics, cartoons and illustrations by his hand, some of which became classics. Pidgeon also livened up the humorous columns of Lennie Lower, increasing the popularity of the magazine from the mid-1930s onwards. During World War II, he also made paintings and illustrations for Australian Women's Weekly, depicting the Australian war effort in the Pacific Ocean war zone.
Comics career
In The Sunday News, Pidgeon drew his first gag comic, 'The Trifling Triplets', which ran from September 1926 on, for nine months. For the Australian Women's Weekly, he drew a longer-lived comic strip, 'In and Out of Society...' (1933). This was a gag comic inspired by current societal trends. Between 1959 and 1969, he also drew a comic strip titled 'Victa News'.
"Allied Shooting Gallery" (Sydney Sunday Telegraph, 25 September 1943). The two men behind the counter are Hideki Tojo and Adolf Hitler.
Graphic contributions
Pidgeon illustrated Colin Wills' book 'Rhymes of Sydney' (1933), Nino Culotta's 'They're A Weird Mob' and other novels. Between 1949 and 1972, he reinvented himself as a portrait painter. In 1965, he was one of the founding members of the Lane Cove Art Society. Pidgeon's woodcut illustrations for Carboni Raffaello's 'The Eureka Stockade' (1937) were given to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt by attorney-general Dr. H.V. Evatt, who praised the artwork.
Recognition
In 1945, two of Pidgeon war-time paintings received 'First Prize' awards for the 'Air and Medical Sections' of the national exhibition 'Australia at War'. Pidgeon won the Archibald Prize for portrait painting three times, respectively in 1958 (of Daily Telegraph chief editor Ray Walker), 1961 (of Rabbi Dr I Porush) and 1968 (of landscape painter Lloyd Rees).
Final years and death
Diagnosed with glaucoma in 1956, Pidgeon underwent six operations to fix his eyesight, but by 1972 he was still forced to reduce his graphic career to a minimum. Now declared legally blind, Pidgeon kept his condition secret from the outside world, afraid of no longer receiving commissions. He managed to keep making illustrations, even fill in for the political cartoonist of the Sunday Telegraph for two years (1974-1975) and, between 1974 and 1979, served as art critic for the same paper. He would visit exhibitions and inspect the artworks with a literal magnifying glass.
In 1979, Pidgeon was trimming bushes on a step ladder in the laneway beside his home when his neighbor's car hit him. He was never the same afterwards and passed away in 1981 in the hospital, at age 72.
In 2014, most of Pidgeon's war-time archives were donated to the Australian War Memorial.
Cover illustrations for The Australian Women's Weekly.