A tale of a letterhead...
Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 9:15 pm
At the inaugural meeting of the CJ Dennis Society, held three weeks ago, I felt the proposed design for our letterhead looked a little drab. I excitedly suggested a caricature of CJ Dennis, drawn by the cartoonist David Low, be added to it. The image, entitled ‘Den as minstrel’, shows an open-mouthed CJ Dennis strumming away enthusiastically on a banjo (which he had made himself). The general consensus was that the caricature gave our letterhead a real lift.
Reflecting more coolly in the days that followed, however, it occurred to me that the image, although drawn approximately a hundred years ago, might still be under copyright. Some quick research confirmed my fears. David Low died after 1955 (in 1963), which means that copyright in all his works continues until seventy years after his death (2033). Clearly, we had a problem.
I contacted the British Cartoon Archive, and they were able to put me in touch with the managers of David Low’s estate. So why the BRITISH Cartoon Archive? Wasn’t the picture drawn in Australia? Yes, it was. So here’s the story.
Truth is, until now I’d never taken much interest in David Low. Hal Gye was the illustrator for all Dennis’ most successful and interesting books - ‘The Sentimental Bloke’, ‘The Moods of Ginger Mick’,’The Glugs of Gosh’. I knew Low only as the illustrator of the cover of Dennis’ first book, ‘Backblock Ballads and Other Verse’. This book, the only one of Dennis’ books not published by Angus & Robertson, had not been a great success. (It was re-published, as ‘Backblock Ballads and Later Verse’, by Angus & Robertson some years later.) I knew also that Low had written very affectionately about both Gye and Dennis in his autobiography.
This time, however, I decided to find out a little more about David Low. And what I did discover positively stunned me. He was actually born in New Zealand - Dunedin - in 1891. He migrated to Sydney in 1911 to work on ‘The Bulletin’. (He also lived in Melbourne for a time.) He became famous in 1916 after drawing a cartoon of Billy Hughes, entitled ‘The Imperial Conference’. He followed this up with a book of cartoons about Billy Hughes, ‘The Billy Book’. This led him to being invited by Henry Cadbury to work on ‘The London Star’, and he moved to England in 1919. He moved to ‘The Evening Standard’ in 1927, and it was here that he produced the best work of his career.
To cut a long story short, Low made himself an international reputation with his cartoons about Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and Franco. In 1937 Joseph Goebbels blamed him for damaging Anglo-German relations. Adolf Hitler especially hated him, and his work was banned in Germany. Following the end of WWll, David Low’s name was found in ‘The Black Book’, the list of people the Nazis planned to arrest after they had won the war.
David Low was knighted in 1962.
Following his death, ‘The Guardian’ described him as ‘the dominant cartoonist of the western world’.
Amazing to think that this man was a close friend of both Hal Gye and CJ Dennis, well before the three of them had reached the peaks of their careers.
And the letterhead for the CJ Dennis Society? We appear to have secured the rights to use David Low’s caricature of Dennis upon payment of a small fee. This will be provided by a generous supporter who wishes to remain anonymous.
Reflecting more coolly in the days that followed, however, it occurred to me that the image, although drawn approximately a hundred years ago, might still be under copyright. Some quick research confirmed my fears. David Low died after 1955 (in 1963), which means that copyright in all his works continues until seventy years after his death (2033). Clearly, we had a problem.
I contacted the British Cartoon Archive, and they were able to put me in touch with the managers of David Low’s estate. So why the BRITISH Cartoon Archive? Wasn’t the picture drawn in Australia? Yes, it was. So here’s the story.
Truth is, until now I’d never taken much interest in David Low. Hal Gye was the illustrator for all Dennis’ most successful and interesting books - ‘The Sentimental Bloke’, ‘The Moods of Ginger Mick’,’The Glugs of Gosh’. I knew Low only as the illustrator of the cover of Dennis’ first book, ‘Backblock Ballads and Other Verse’. This book, the only one of Dennis’ books not published by Angus & Robertson, had not been a great success. (It was re-published, as ‘Backblock Ballads and Later Verse’, by Angus & Robertson some years later.) I knew also that Low had written very affectionately about both Gye and Dennis in his autobiography.
This time, however, I decided to find out a little more about David Low. And what I did discover positively stunned me. He was actually born in New Zealand - Dunedin - in 1891. He migrated to Sydney in 1911 to work on ‘The Bulletin’. (He also lived in Melbourne for a time.) He became famous in 1916 after drawing a cartoon of Billy Hughes, entitled ‘The Imperial Conference’. He followed this up with a book of cartoons about Billy Hughes, ‘The Billy Book’. This led him to being invited by Henry Cadbury to work on ‘The London Star’, and he moved to England in 1919. He moved to ‘The Evening Standard’ in 1927, and it was here that he produced the best work of his career.
To cut a long story short, Low made himself an international reputation with his cartoons about Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and Franco. In 1937 Joseph Goebbels blamed him for damaging Anglo-German relations. Adolf Hitler especially hated him, and his work was banned in Germany. Following the end of WWll, David Low’s name was found in ‘The Black Book’, the list of people the Nazis planned to arrest after they had won the war.
David Low was knighted in 1962.
Following his death, ‘The Guardian’ described him as ‘the dominant cartoonist of the western world’.
Amazing to think that this man was a close friend of both Hal Gye and CJ Dennis, well before the three of them had reached the peaks of their careers.
And the letterhead for the CJ Dennis Society? We appear to have secured the rights to use David Low’s caricature of Dennis upon payment of a small fee. This will be provided by a generous supporter who wishes to remain anonymous.