Eric Jolliffe

Eric Ernest Jolliffe OAM (31 January 1907 – 16 November 2001) was an Australian cartoonist and illustrator.

Born in Portsmouth, England, he was the youngest boy in a family of twelve children. The family migrated to Perth in 1911 before settling in Sydney after six months, where they settled in Balmain. Eric left school at the age of fifteen, where he spent the next six years in the country New South Wales and Queensland, working as a boundary rider, rabbit trapper and in shearing sheds. A visit to Angus & Robertson bookstore, whilst visiting his family in Sydney, led to the discovery of a book on drawing. He afterwards reflected: 'I learned to my surprise that art wasn't necessarily a gift divine but a craft that could be studied and worked at'.

Jolliffe enrolled in an introductory course at East Sydney Technical College (now the National Art School), where his teachers commented on his lack of talent. During the depression he worked as a window cleaner, during which time he inundated The Bulletin with cartoons, which they subsequently rejected. Eventually they began to buy his cartoons and by the beginning of World War II he became a regular contributor, taking over Andy from Arthur Horner. During the war he served as a camouflage officer with the RAAF and spent time in Arnhem Land.After the war he joined Smith's Weekly but resigned and began freelancing selling his cartoon strips Saltbush Bill and Witchetty's Tribe to Pix Magazine.[1] He was particularly fond of "bush" subjects. Another cartoon strip, Sandy Blight, appeared in Sydney's Sun-Herald. In 1973 Jolliffe began publishing his own magazine, Jolliffe's Outback.

Jolliffe was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the 1998 Australia Day Honours for "service to art as a cartoonist and illustrator".[2]

Jolliffe died at the age of 94 in the Central Coast, New South Wales on 16 November 2001.