William Henry Dyson was an Australian illustrator and political cartoonist. In 1931 he was regarded as 'one of the world's foremost black and white artists', and in 1980, 'Australia's greatest cartoonist'.
Personal life
Will Dyson was part of a literary family, with journalist and writer brother Edward 'Ted' Dyson, illustrator brother Ambrose Dyson, and three sisters also of artistic praise. His parents George and Jane came from England. Dyson was a boxer of some note in the 1900s. Artist Norman Lindsay was part of his social and professional circle and in 1909, Dyson, Lindsay, and Lindsay's illustrator sister Ruby, moved to London. Dyson went to work with the London Daily Herald. In 1910 he married Ruby. She died as a result of the Spanish flu pandemic in 1919. He returned to Australia in 1925, but for the 'mediocrity' of Melbourne, he then went to New York, and then returned London. Dyson died suddenly but peacefully relaxed in an armchair on 21 January 1938, aged 55 of heart failure. He was survived by their only child, daughter Betty, a noted artistic designer.
Works
Before moving from Australia to London, Dyson was a caricaturist for The Bulletin and occasionally for Melbourne's Herald newspaper, he drew with a 'cruel and biting' style. During World War I, Dyson became known for his war cartoons, with a satiric tone. He was commissioned as a lieutenant and sent to the Western Front, the 'mission was to make characteristic drawings of life in the trenches', making him Australia's first war artist. The frontline experience impacted him, changing his cartooning direction from the militarists to the 'sufferers'. Dyson later engaged in a debate with General Sir John Monash about his drawing of Diggers: English writer H. G. Wells was part of his professional circle. He returned to Australia from 1925 to 1930, to the about-to-be-sold Melbourne Punch. He later was the chief cartoonist for the Daily Herald in London.
Prominence
It was shortly after his wife's death in 1919 that he drew what was to become one of the most celebrated and widely reproduced of all cartoons, entitled 'Peace and Future Cannon Fodder', and astonishing in its uncanny foresight. Published in the British Daily Herald on 13 May 1919, it showed David Lloyd George, Vittorio Orlando and Georges Clemenceau, together with Woodrow Wilson, the President of the United States, emerging after a meeting at Versailles to discuss the Peace Treaty. Clemenceau, who was identified by his nickname 'The Tiger' is saying to the others: 'Curious! I seem to hear a child weeping!'. And there, behind a pillar, is a child in tears; labelled '1940 Class'.
Legacy
Dyson's friend and colleague Charles Bean suggested that the Australian War Memorial should have a special Dyson gallery, so high was his respect for Dyson's work. In 2016, the Memorial held more than 270 of Dyson's works, but had none of them on display.
