Joe Jonsson

{{Short description|Australian cartoonist}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2020}}

{{Use Australian English|date=June 2020}}

Nils Josef Jonsson (originally Jönsson){{cite Australian Dictionary of Biography | last = Lindesay

| first = Vane

| title = Jonsson, Nils Josef

| year = 1983

|id=A090519b

| access-date = 29 June 2010}} (13 December 1890 – 19 March 1963) was an Australian cartoonist born in Halmstad, Sweden.{{Cite web

| last = Kerr

| first = Joan

| title = Nils Josef Jonsson

| work = Dictionary of Australian Artists Online

| date = 14 November 2007

| url = http://www.daao.org.au/main/read/3601

| access-date = 29 June 2010}}

File:Joe_Jonsson.jpg

At age 18 he went to sea for nine years, painting in his spare time. In 1915 he "jumped ship" in New Zealand where he worked for a while, then in Australia, finally settling down in Sydney where he studied painting full-time from 1918 to 1920 at the studio of John S. Watkins (1866–1942), becoming an instructor himself within a year. He worked as cartoonist with Smith's Weekly from 1924 to 1950 when it closed; the last artist still on staff. His jokes mostly centred on what he knew best: horses, ships and drunks.{{Cite book

| last = Lindesay

| first = Vane

| title = The Inked-In Image

| publisher = Hutchinson

| year = 1979

| location = Melbourne

| pages = 45–46

| isbn = 0-09-135460-9}}

Though he produced many gag panels for Smith's Weekly, he is best remembered for "Uncle Joe and his Horse Radish", a coloured strip which first appeared January 1951 in Keith Murdoch's Sunday Herald, later Sun-Herald and was carried by other News Limited papers including Adelaide's Sunday Mail. It revolved around the splay-footed racehorse and its owners Joe (Swedish like himself) and his wife Gladys, children Oigle and Doigle, their jockey cousin Manfred and the colourful characters of the racecourse – gamblers, drunks, bookies, nobblers, touts, society belles and so on.{{Cite book

| last = Ryan

| first = John

| title = Panel By Panel

| publisher = Cassell Australia

| year = 1979

| location = Sydney

| pages = 73

| isbn = 0-7269-7376-9}}

Joe was a big powerful and reckless man with a photographic memory and enormous sense of humour. He also had a huge appetite for alcohol and a fondness for the "great Australian adjective" but it always came out pronounced "bletty". When he was called by Sir John Longstaff "the finest black-and-white artist Australia has produced", Joe's riposte was "Fancy that. And me a bletty Swede too!"{{Cite book

| last = Blaikie

| first = George

| title = Remember Smith's Weekly?

| publisher = Rigby

| year = 1975

| location = Adelaide

| pages = 75–79

}}

He was a foundation member of the Society of Australian Black and White Artists.{{Cite web

| last = Foyle

| first = Lindsay

| title = Jonsson, Josef Nils

| work = History of Australian Cartoonists

| publisher = Australian Cartoonists' Association

| url = http://cartoonists.org.au/?page=215

| access-date = 29 June 2010}}

He married Agnes Mary McIntyre in 1927. He died of cardiovascular disease in Sydney in 1963, and was survived by his wife, a son and a daughter.

References