 Livingston
Hopkins photograph Ravenscroft
Album National Library of
Australia |
THE NATIONAL
LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA'S FEDERATION
GATEWAY
HOPKINS, LIVINGSTON (1846-1927)
A major cartoonist of the Sydney
Bulletin during the Federation period
Known as 'Hop',
cartoonist, was born on 7 July 1846 at Bellefontaine, Ohio, USA., and married
Harriet Augusta Commager on 9 June 1875.
In 1882 Hopkins met W.H. Traill
who so inspired him that by February 1883 Hopkins arrived in Sydney with his
wife, three children and a two-year contract with the Bulletin. He
worked for the Bulletin for more than 30 years, became part-proprietor,
and added much to that journal's power and vigour. Best known of 'Hop's'
cartoons were the Sudan War and Federation series, and those that caricatured
Parkes, Dibbs, Reid, Lyne, Wise and other public figures. On the Hop, a
selection of drawings, appeared in 1904, but his output steadily declined until
his virtual retirement in 1913, by which time he was a director of the
Bulletin.
His 19,000 drawings included social satire, jokes,
Bulletin calendars and postcards, and illustrations. His interpretation
of the politicians and the regular appearance of his symbolic figures and
menagerie of allegorical animals did much to explain the gospel of economic and
racial isolationism, Republican nationalism and cultural chauvinism that the
Bulletin preached before Federation.
Hopkins formed the first
Australian group to practice etching, painted occasionally, made violins,
gardened and played bowls. He died in Sydney on 21 August 1927.
Books of interest
Hopkins, Dorothy June.
(1929). Hop of the 'Bulletin'. Sydney, Australia: Angus &
Robertson.
The Bulletin is available in the
Newspaper/Microform Section in paper and microcopy formats. The library also
has a biographical cuttings file on Hopkins. |