Paul Rigby

Paul Crispin Rigby AM (October 25, 1924 – November 15 2006), usually working under the name Rigby, was an award-winning Australian cartoonist who worked principally for newspapers in the UK, the US and Australia.

Early life

Born Sandringham, Melbourne, Rigby studied art at Brighton Technical School before leaving at 15 to work as a commercial artist, eventually taking up freelance work. Rigby served in the Royal Australian Air Force during World War II, from 1942 to 1946, seeing action in North Africa and Europe.

Western Australia

Rigby's first newspaper work was as an illustrator with West Australian Newspapers in 1948. However, his work as a political cartoonist started at the "Daily News" (Perth) in 1952, where he won five Walkley Awards between 1960 and 1969.

His work coincided with that of Kirwan Ward on the back page of the Daily News and also resulted in a number of books published [ Ward, Kirwan, (1967)"Perth sketchbook" drawings by Paul Rigby. Adelaide : Rigby, Sketchbook series. ISBN 0851795277 ]

Further afield

Rigby worked briefly at Rupert Murdoch's "Sydney Daily Mirror" but Murdoch had recently purchased English tabloid "The Sun" and in 1969, Rigby relocated to London to work on Murdoch's new acquisition alongside Clive Collins. Rigby also contributed work to the "News of the World", the German Springer Group and the U.S. "National Star".

Rigby returned to Australia in 1974 to work at the "Sydney Daily Telegraph" and then moved to the U.S. to work at another new Murdoch acquisition, the "New York Post", also contributing to the "Star". He won a New York Press Club Award in 1981 and a Newspaper Guild Page One Award in 1982. From 1984 to 1992, he worked at the "New York Daily News".

Rigby worked in pen and ink on Bristol board (Grafix or Craftint). In much the same way that Al Hirschfeld concealed the name "NINA" in his own drawings, Rigby usually included hard-to-find images of a small grinning hat-wearing boy and a tiny dog somewhere in his cartoons.

Rigby also made a foray into the Fremantle restaurant scene in the late 1960s - 70s. He opened a classy (for Fremantle) beef and burgundy joint in a High Street basement at the west end of town. It was about opposite where the Roma Italian restaurant was. Both places are now only nostalgic memories.Fact|date=February 2007

In an entrepreneurial mood in Western Australia he also privately-published a course on how to draw cartoons. [ Rigby, Paul (1987) "Cartooning & drawing techniques" compiled by Harvey Bean. Subiaco, W.A : 12 Star Product Group. ISBN 0864140053 ]

Retirement

Rigby and his wife had retired to the Margaret River area in Busselton, Western Australia, in 2003, where he died of a heart attack on 15 November, 2006. [cite news |publisher=ABC News |url=http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200611/s1790242.htm |title=Renowned cartoonist dies |date=2006-11-16 |accessdate=2007-01-06]

Footnotes

Bibliography

*cite book | author=Bryant, M. | title=Dictionary of Twentieth-Century British Cartoonists and Caricaturists | publisher=Ashgate | location=Aldershot | year=2000 | pages=186 | id=ISBN 1-84014-286-3

External links

* [http://opal.kent.ac.uk/cartoonx-cgi/artist.py?id=501 Biography] from British Cartoon Archive, University of Kent
* [http://opal.kent.ac.uk/cartoonx-cgi/ccc.py?mode=summary&search=rigby Cartoons]
* [http://www.noz.com.au/cole.html Buchanan obituary]