Harold Frederick Neville Gye (22 May 1887 — 25 November 1967), 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 (née Warr).NSW Birth registration (1887): Harold F. A. Gye; reg. district: Canterbury; reg. no.: 5495/1887. His father was a builder, originally from London.Joan Kerr (1996), Hal Gye, Design & Art Australia Online website; accessed 20 January 2024. 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.Ian F. McLaren (1983), Harold Frederick Neville (Hal) Gye (1887–1967), Australian Dictionary of Biography website, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University; accessed 21 December 2023.Memoirs of Harold Gye, The Worker (Wagga Wagga), 29 September 1910, page 21. 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.Fasoli's: Early Home of Bohemian Melbourne, The Herald (Melbourne), 21 June 1929, page 6. 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.W. E. Fitz Henry, 'James Hackston', The Bulletin, 6 October 1954, pages 25, 27. During 1906 Gye had several of his cartoons published in The Gadfly, founded in Adelaide by C. J. Dennis.Unwinding it, The Gadfly (Adelaide), 6 June 1906, page 7.The Height of Fame, The Gadfly (Adelaide), 7 November 1906, page 7. His illustration, 'Prince's Bridge at Night', was published in the December 1907 edition of The Native Companion.Prince's Bridge at Night, The Native Companion: An Australian Monthly Magazine of Literature and Life, Vol. 2 No. 5, page 325. Later that month the Sydney-based Bulletin magazine published verse written by Gye, titled 'Mrs. Melba's Motor Car'.Mrs. Melba's Motor Car, The Bulletin, 19 December 1907, page 9.
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.Hal Gye, until lately..., The Worker (Wagga Wagga), 19 March 1908, page 27. 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," a profusely-illustrated..., The Worker (Wagga Wagga), 20 August 1908, page 27. Vumps (subtitled "Pure Australian Fun") 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.Vumps v1#1, AusReprints website; accessed 21 January 2024.Ann Nugent (1996), 'From Fatty Finn to the Phantom', National Library of Australia News, Trove website, National Library of Australia; accessed 21 January 2024.
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".The History of Aviation, Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 23 November 1909, page 10.The history of aviation : souvenir / by Ambrose Pratt; illustrated by Hal Gye, Trove website, National Library of Australia; accessed 21 January 2024.
After Will Dyson left for England in October 1909, Gye was invited to contribute theatrical caricatures from Melbourne to The Bulletin.C. J. Dennis (1923), 'The Art and Humor of Hal Gye', The Mail (Adelaide), 16 June 1923, page 1. Gye's caricatures and political and humorous cartoons continued to be occasionally published in The Bulletin into the 1920s.See examples: The Jib, The Bulletin, 22 July 1920, page 8; Killing the Goose, The Bulletin, 29 July 1920, page 8; Frank Madden (caricature), The Bulletin, 24 February 1921, page 14; What You Might Call a Side-line, The Bulletin, 7 June 1923, page 22. 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.Hot Summer Nights, The Bulletin (Sydney), 25 November 1915, page 10.
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 (in addition to The Bulletin), 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".Melissa Bellanta (2014), 'A Masculine Romance: The Sentimental Bloke and Australian Culture in the War- and Early Interwar Years', Journal of Popular Romance Studies, October 2014. The book, published by Angus & Robertson in Sydney and with a dust-jacket featuring Gye's artwork, was released in October 1915.Recent Publications, The Advertiser (Adelaide), 30 October 1915, page 5.L. T. Sardone, '40 Years of Blurb', Sydney Morning Herald, 26 September 1953, page 7.
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.Victorian marriage registration (1916): Harold Frederick Neville Gye and Alice Clara Gifford; reg. No.: 11052/1916.
Gye provided illustrations for an anthology of Scottish Border poet and Australian bush balladeer Will H. Ogilvie, with The Australian and other verses (1916) frontispiece and title page.Books and Bookmen: Gossip: Will H. Ogilvie, The Catholic Press (Sydney), 26 October 1916, page 3."Sunshine and Mist", The Mail (Adelaide), 4 November 1916, page 11. 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.C. J. Dennis: his Glugs, The Mirror (Sydney), 20 October 1917, page 8.
During the period 1915 to 1918 Gye's illustrations were featured in short stories published in the Weekly Times Annual.See examples: By the Light of the Moon (by C. Raworth), Weekly Times Annual, 4 November 1915, page 39; Her Billy Soldier (by Gertrude Hart), Weekly Times Annual, 3 November 1917, page 35; The Laughing Photograph (by M. Forrest), Weekly Times Annual, 2 November 1918, page 40. 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.Football Features Shown by Black & White Artist, The Herald (Melbourne), 2 May 1919, page 3."Gingering Up" the Milder Sports, The Herald (Melbourne), 14 February 1920, page 1. In 1921 a book of Gye's cartoons and caricatures of players and officials of Melbourne's football clubs was published, titled Football Fragments.Football Fragments, Referee (Sydney), 10 August 1921, page 13.