Harold Frederick Neville Gye
Harold Frederick Neville Gye, was a prolific Australian artist, cartoonist and caricaturist under the name Hal Gye and a writer of verse and short stories under James Hackston. Gye's artwork was published in a number of newspapers and magazines including The Bulletin, a journal with which he had a long association both as an artist and a writer. Gye was also a noted book illustrator. His artwork was featured in the books of C. J. Dennis beginning with The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke in 1915 and he also illustrated books of verse by Will H. Ogilvie and Banjo Paterson. As 'James Hackston' Gye wrote verse and autobiographical short stories published in The Bulletin and the Coast to Coast series of anthologies. In 1966 his collected short stories were published as Father Clears Out.
Biography
Early years
Harold Frederick Neville Gye was born in the Sydney suburb of Ryde on 22 May 1887, the son of Walter Neville Gye and Priscilla. His father was a builder, originally from London. Later in 1888 Walter Gye took his family to the Black Range goldfield to the north of Albury near the Victorian border where he took up land and prospected for gold. Young Harold was educated in the local bush school until the age of twelve. In about 1899 his family moved to Melbourne.For about two years Gye worked in a architect’s office in Melbourne, after which he worked as a law clerk. Gye was an avid reader of books on drawing and joined an art class conducted by Alek Sass. He became a member of the Melbourne bohemian group which met at the Mitre Hotel in Bank Place and Fasoli's Cafe in Lonsdale Street. While he was employed as a law clerk, Gye began to have his artistic and literary work published, including a political cartoon accepted for publication by The Bulletin, featuring the Australian prime minister George Reid. During 1906 Gye had several of his cartoons published in The Gadfly, founded in Adelaide by C. J. Dennis. His illustration, 'Prince's Bridge at Night', was published in the December 1907 edition of The Native Companion. Later that month the Sydney-based Bulletin magazine published verse written by Gye, titled 'Mrs. Melba's Motor Car'.
An artistic and literary career
In March 1908 it was reported that Hal Gye had abandoned his career as a law clerk pursuing legal studies in favour of drawing and writing professionally. His first acceptance as a freelance artist was a drawing he sold for two shillings and sixpence to Melbourne's weekly Table Talk magazine.Gye shared a studio with Alex Sass and Harry Weston. On Sundays he inked-in sections of the full-page drawings Sass was producing each week for Melbourne's weekly Punch magazine. During this period Gye also inked-in some of Ambrose Dyson's cartoons for the Pastoral Review, "when Dyson's hand was too shaky for the task".
Gye contributed several cartoons to Vumps, "a profusely-illustrated sixteen-page penny 'comic'", published in Sydney in August 1908. Vumps was Australia's first comic book, promoted as a rival to the English 'boys own' comics. However, the Australian publication did not survive beyond its first issue.
In 1909 Gye provided illustrations for a booklet written by Ambrose Pratt called The History of Aviation. The publication outlined "the problem of human flight... from its legendary stage until its successful achievement in the present century".
After Will Dyson left for England in October 1909, Gye was invited to contribute theatrical caricatures from Melbourne to The Bulletin. Gye's caricatures and political and humorous cartoons continued to be occasionally published in The Bulletin into the 1920s. Gye contributed writings as well as images and was considered to be "one of The Bulletin's best all-round contributors". In addition to his caricatures and cartoons he had verse published in The Bulletin, wrote material for the 'Red Page' and leader-page, reported on boxing matches and contributed "a fair amount of writing" for the 'Poverty Point' section of the magazine.
In September 1910 Gye was employed as an artist for The Vanguard, a daily newspaper published by the Victorian branch of the Australian Labor Party. At about that time he was also contributing works to other publications, contributing caricatures of politicians to Melbourne Punch, as well as of sporting people for the Judge. His cartoons were also published in The Worker newspaper, published in Wagga Wagga.
In 1911 Gye was one of seven artists who contributed illustrations to a publication commemorating an incident in the Second Boer War in February 1900 when members of the Victorian Mounted Rifles were part of a force covering the retreat of the Wiltshire Regiment by holding a kopje named Pink Hill, west of Rensburg, against overwhelming odds. The Victorian casualties were the first of the war.
From about 1912 Gye shared a studio with the cartoonist David Low in Collins Street, Melbourne. Low left Australia for England in 1919.
In 1913 Gye collaborated with the journalist T. M. Hogan in a book about Tasmania titled The Tight Little Island, described as "a panorama of the authors' peregrinations and reflections". In a review published in Hobart's Critic newspaper, Gye's illustrations for the publication were described as "quaint and humorous".
Gye was one of four artists who held an exhibition at the Athenaeum Galleries in Melbourne in August 1914. The other artists represented were Percy Lindsay, G. Courtney Benson and R. H. Stockfeld. A review of the exhibition commented that Gye "enjoys the somewhat doubtful felicity of being an expert caricaturist" who "handles his pen with a facile and acceptable directness". Gye's contributions included thirty caricatures, as well as "more orthodox" works showing "the possession of a poetic sense".
After C. J. Dennis had completed the writing of The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, he chose Hal Gye "to do the quaint illustrations" the author had in mind. They met at Gye's studio and "planned an elaborate 'make-up'" of the book, including the title-page and dust-jacket. The illustrations produced by Gye for The Sentimental Bloke highlight the romantic qualities of the text, portraying the uncultivated 'larrikin' Bill as a whimsical cupid-figure, "complete with chubby thighs and stubbily diaphanous wings". The book, published by Angus & Robertson in Sydney and with a dust-jacket featuring Gye's artwork, was released in October 1915.
In 1916 Gye married Alice Gifford, a chorus girl for the J. C. Williamson theatrical company. The couple were married at Flemington on 15 November 1916 in the Methodist church.
Gye provided illustrations for an anthology of Scottish Border poet and Australian bush balladeer Will H. Ogilvie, with The Australian and other verses frontispiece and title page. Work was also undertaken for poet and writer Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson. Gye provided the illustrations for Dennis' book of satirical verse The Glugs of Gosh, published in 1917.
During the period 1915 to 1918 Gye's illustrations were featured in short stories published in the Weekly Times Annual. In 1918 Gye extended the concept of his popular cupid illustrations from The Sentimental Bloke. A full-page cartoon called 'Cupid Up to Date' was published in the Weekly Times Annual, depicting Cupid's courtship and marriage, his war service and eventual wounding and his return to Australia to his wife and newborn son.
From May 1919 to about February 1920 sporting-themed cartoons by Hal Gye were published in the Saturday 'Sporting Edition' of Melbourne's The Herald newspaper. In 1921 a book of Gye's cartoons and caricatures of players and officials of Melbourne's football clubs was published, titled Football Fragments.
In about June 1923 Gye was appointed chief artist on the staff of the daily afternoon Adelaide newspaper, The News. The broadsheet newspaper had previously been published as The Journal and was renamed after being acquired by James E. Davidson's News Limited company. In the first issue of The News, published on 24 July 1923, Gye introduced a cartoon character called 'Mr. Subbubs', described as "Adelaide's Man with a Grievance". Gye's cartoons featuring Mr. Subbubs, an 'everyman' figure, were a regular feature published in The News from July 1923 until June 1926. By mid-year 1924 the character of Mr. Subbubs had become so popular in Adelaide that his image was "being used to heighten the picturesqueness and appeal of various forms of advertising publicity", prompting The News to remind readers that the character 'is copyrighted and therefore cannot be utilised in any of these connections without express permission". In December 1925 the Mr. Subbubs Drawing Book for Kids was published which included "a quaintly humorous account of the schooldays of Mr. Subbubs", as well as instructions and illustrations by Gye on how to draw the face of Mr. Subbubs and an exposition of "the gentle art of caricaturing".
The collaborative partnership between Gye and C. J. Dennis ceased after the writer objected to "a direct arrangement between Angus and Robertson and Gye" relating to the illustrations for Rose of Spadgers. The book, subtitled A Sequel to Ginger Mick and with illustrations by Gye, was eventually published in December 1924 by the Cornstalk Publishing Company of Sydney.
Cartoons by Gye with sports themes were published in Melbourne's The Sporting Globe newspaper from about November 1932 to September 1933. An exhibition of coloured monotype prints by Hal Gye opened in late-May 1933 at the Fine Art Society's Gallery in Melbourne. Fifty-five works, which included landscapes and flower studies, were exhibited.