Cecil Lawrence Hartt (15 July 1884 – c. 17 May 1930) was an Australian cartoonist and caricaturist. As a wartime artist, he popularised the concept of the Australian digger as independent, easy-going and disrespectful of authority, with a sardonic attitude to life. He was the first artist to be employed by Smith's Weekly in 1919, continuing in that role until his death in 1930. Over his career Hartt produced a large number of cartoons on a broad range of subjects and themes; his drawings encompassed political, social and military topics and were admired for their observational humour and the quality of his character portraits. He mainly drew single-panel cartoons, but his body of work also includes early examples of Australian comic strips. Hartt was the first president of the Australian Black and White Artists' Club, formed in July 1924 (now the Australian Cartoonists' Association).
Biography
Early life
Cecil Hartt was born Cyril Lawrence Hartt on 16 July 1884 at Prahran in inner suburban Melbourne, the son of James Hartt and Alice (née Lawrence), one of seven children in the family.Victorian birth registration: Cyril Lawrance Hartt; reg. no. 19611/1884.Family records (per Ancestry.com). His given name, Cyril, was soon abandoned and from an early age he was known as Cecil, or informally 'Cec'.
In about 1887, James Hartt took a job as a bookkeeper at Alfred Billson's Anglo-Australian Brewery at Beechworth, in north-east Victoria. In March 1897, Hartt resigned from his position "to seek to better his fortunes in Western Australia".Farewell Presentation to Mr. James Hartt, Ovens and Murray Advertiser (Beechworth), 3 April 1897, page 9. By December 1897, James Hartt was living in Barrack-street in Perth.Patents and Inventions, Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney), 25 December 1897, page 13.
By about 1901, the Hartt family had returned to north-east Victoria, living at Tallangatta near Albury-Wodonga, with James Hartt working as the head bookkeeper in Dyring and Dyring's general merchandise store.Obituary, Ovens and Murray Advertiser (Beechworth), 27 January 1906, page 8. Cecil's mother died in January 1906 at Tallangatta after having "been in indifferent health for some time".Tallangatta, Ovens and Murray Advertiser (Beechworth), 27 January 1906, page 9. In April 1906, Cecil's father left Tallangatta for Melbourne after Dyring's store changed hands.Tallangatta, Ovens and Murray Advertiser (Beechworth), 21 April 1906, page 7. His father remarried in 1907.Victorian marriage registration: James Hartt & Fran Hannah Heeps; reg. no. 5645/1907.
A freelance artist
By about 1907 Cecil Hartt was working as a clerk at the Yarra Bend Asylum, in the Melbourne suburb of Fairfield.Life's Tragic Side: Decapitated, Weekly Times (Melbourne), 13 June 1908, page 31. In August 1907 a cartoon by Hartt was accepted and published in The Bulletin magazine.Couldn't Stand it, The Bulletin, 22 August 1907, page 14. During this period, Hartt began taking instruction in drawing from Alex Sass, an older artist who was working as a cartoonist for Melbourne Punch.Cecil Hartt: An Australian Soldier Artist, The Lone Hand, Vol. 7 No. 3, 1 February 1917, page 147. Hartt also studied art in Melbourne with the artist Harold Gye.Jessica Milner Davis & Lindsay Foyle (2017), 'The Satirist, the Larrikin and the Politician: An Australian Perspective on Satire and Politics', Chapter 1 of J. Milner Davis (ed.), Satire and Politics: The Interplay of Heritage and Practice, Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, , pages 15-16. In 1908, Hartt had a drawing published in Comments, a short-lived Melbourne journal.Our Contemporaries, Smith's Weekly (Sydney), 6 May 1922, page 22. He also contributed to Randolph Bedford's mining and literary journal, The Clarion (at that time Melbourne's answer to The Bulletin).Former ACA Prez Cec Hart by Lindsay Foyle & Nat Karmichael, Inkspot, 14 October 2016, page 7.
Late in the morning on 3 June 1908, near Auburn railway station, James Hartt took his own life by placing his head on the rail as a train approached. The train-driver was alerted and applied the brakes, but was unable to stop in time. Hartt was decapitated; his remains were removed to the morgue where it was Cecil who had to identify his father's mutilated body. James Hartt had been living in Caulfield and had been unemployed for about nine weeks before his suicide.Deaths, The Argus (Melbourne), 4 June 1908, page 1.
In January 1909, Hartt relocated to Sydney. In July 1909 he married Ruby Manners in the Newcastle suburb of Hamilton and a son, named Lawrence, was born to the couple in March 1910.In Divorce, Sydney Morning Herald, 3 March 1923, page 9. In 1911, Hartt was living in Walenore-avenue, Newtown. In January 1912, Hartt was elected as one of the two vice-presidents of the Australian Writers' and Artists' Union. He also served as a union delegate to the Labor Council.The election of officers..., The Worker (Wagga Wagga), 1 February 1912, page 23. In 1913, Hartt was living in Hunter-street, Sydney, working as a freelance artist.Sand's Directories: 1911, page 1090; 1913, page 1197. During the period 1911 to 1913, he had cartoons accepted for the Sydney magazine The Comic Australian.
In about 1913, Hartt met Henry Lawson and the two became close friends. Hartt and Lawson had common connections with The Bulletin, The Australian Worker newspaper and the Australian Writers' and Artists' Union.'Mutch, Thomas Davies (1885-1958)' (in) Marilla North (editor); Dymphna Cusack, Florence James & Miles Franklin (2001), Yarn Spinners: A Story in Letters, St. Lucia, Qld.: University of Queensland Press, page 413. They were a part of a wider social group of Sydney-based writers and artists,Hugh McCrae Goes, Sunday Times (Sydney), 24 May 1914, page 6.Reminiscences of a Judge, Shoalhaven News (Nowra), 15 March 1939, page 5. who often met for drinking sessions at pubs such as the Newcastle Hotel, at the corner of George and Essex streets, and the Assembly Hotel, at the corner of Hunter and Phillip streets.On the Track, written by Alexander Vennard ('Frank Reid'; 'Bill Bowyang'), Townsville Daily Bulletin, 4 June 1930, page 14.
From 1913 to early 1915, when he enlisted in the army, Hartt contributed political cartoons to The Worker newspaper and its successor, The Australian Worker.Cecil L. Hartt, The Australian Worker (Sydney), 4 March 1915, page 10. Hartt's cartoons were also being published in The Bulletin prior to and after his enlistment in March 1915.See examples: The Hornet's Nest, The Bulletin, 18 February 1915 (Vol. 36 No. 1827), page 16; William's Explanation, The Bulletin, 13 May 1915 (Vol. 36 No. 1839), page 22. In 1915, Hartt was part of a group called the Newspaper Cartoonists' Association of New South Wales which published Sydneyites: As we see ’em 1913-14-15, a book of "representative citizens" of Sydney (all men), each image combining a drawing with a photograph of the subject's head. Hartt contributed nineteen drawings to the publication and was listed as being a cartoonist from The Bulletin.Newspaper Cartoonists' Association of New South Wales (1915), Sydneyites: As we see 'em 1913-14-15 (Sydney: W. S. Grubb & Co.).
Military service
Hartt's occupation was recorded as a cartoonist when he enlisted in the army, aged 30. His next of kin was recorded as his wife Ruby, living on Pittwater Road in Dee Why, a northern beach suburb of Sydney. Hartt enlisted at Liverpool in Sydney in March 1915, shortly after the outbreak of World War I and was placed in B Company of the 18th Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force. In June he embarked for overseas service.World War I service record: First World War Embarkation Roll and First World War Nominal Roll, Private Cecil Lawrence Hartt (569), collection of the Australian War Museum.
The 18th Battalion AIF was sent to Gallipoli. On 27 August 1915, Hartt was wounded in left ankle by a machine-gun bullet during a disastrous charge from Chocolate Hill against Turkish forces on Hill 60. While he was crawling back to safety, Hartt was struck in the right thigh by shrapnel.Artist and Soldier, Port Adelaide News, 8 November 1918, page 5. He was evacuated to Mudros Harbour on Lemnos and then to Heliopolis near Cairo. Three weeks later, he was transferred to England and admitted to the Military Hospital in Reading.
Hartt was hospitalised for five months and his ankle wound left him with a permanent limp. In November 1915, he was taken off active service and placed on a supernumerary list of non-commissioned officers. Hartt remained in England until April 1918 working in the administration of military records at A.I.F. headquarters in London, where he rose to the rank of corporal (and later acting staff-sergeant).
In London, Hartt contributed cartoons to Bystander, The Graphic, The Passing Show and London Opinion magazines. He was one of six Australian artists resident in England at that time who contributed drawings for the souvenir programme of an exhibition game of Australian Rules football held in October 1916 in London between two teams of Australian servicemen.Pioneer Exhibition Game: Australian Football, Wightman & Co. (London), 1916.Australian Football in London: Exhibition Game provides Fine Advertisement, by Gerald Brosnan, Winner (Melbourne), 10 January 1917, page 4.
In London, Hartt began working on a collection of his cartoons and drawings about Australian soldiers, which he published as Humorosities in 1917. Hartt's book, which sold for a shilling a copy, was a great success with over 60,000 copies being sold in Great Britain.Alan McCullough (1968), Encyclopedia of Australian Art, Hutchinson of London, His drawings in Humorosities portrayed the Australian 'digger' as self-reliant, easy-going and disrespectful of authority, "more interested in avoiding tedious rules than in obedient conformity".Lindesay (1979), page 26. Hartt's book of drawings was often purchased by Australian soldiers as a memento of their military experience.Nathan Wise (2007), 'Fighting a Different Enemy: Social Protests against Authority in the Australian Imperial Force during World War I', International Review of Social History, Vol. 52, Supplement 15: Humour and Social Protest (published by Cambridge University Press), pages 234-236. After the publication of Humorosities, Hartt received a letter from John Fortescue, the King's librarian at Windsor Castle, thanking him for a copy Hartt had sent to him. Fortescue described the volume as "a welcome addition to the literature of the war, and doubly welcome as an Australian contribution". He invited Hartt to send "an original sketch or two... with the prices marked" with a view to their inclusion in "the King's collection of drawings".Art and Camouflage: Australians' War Work, The Argus (Melbourne), 16 July 1918, page 5. Humorosities was also sold in Australia, distributed by Gordon and Gotch Ltd.
Hartt returned to Australia aboard the H.M.A.T. Marathon, arriving in Sydney in June 1918. During the journey to Australia, Hartt and one of his comrades issued regular editions of a one-page news-sheet called The Bonzer Times. Due to a paper shortage, it was published as a single copy, posted outside the orderly room so all on board could read it, and "its smartly-written descriptions of doings on board kept a crowd round it all day long". Hartt was discharged from the army on 23 July 1918 "in consequence of medical unfitness".
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