William Pidgeon

William Edwin Pidgeon, aka Bill Pidgeon and Wep, (1909–1981) was an Australian painter who won the Archibald Prize three times. After his death, cartoonist and journalist Les Tanner described him: "He was everything from serious draftsman, brilliant cartoonist, social observer, splittingly funny illustrator to multiple Archibald prizewinner.

Pidgeon was born on 7 January 1909 in Paddington, an inner suburb of Sydney. He was the son of Frederick Castledine Pidgeon and Thirza Jessie Pidgeon, née White. He was educated at Sydney Technical High School. Pidgeon served in the Royal Australian Navy Reserve between 1927 and 1930 (Service Number S6342).

Pidgeon was married twice. He married Jessie Graham in 1933. They had one son in 1944. The same year he moved to Northwood, New South Wales where he lived for the remainder of his life. After Jessie's death, he married Dorothy Lees and a second son was born in 1959. From 1954 he suffered from glaucoma in both eyes. This condition led to gradual deterioration of his eyesight and necessitated six operations. In 1965 Hazel de Berg interviewed him as part of an oral history project to interview Australian artists. He died 16 February 1981 aged 72 years.

Cartoonist Les Tanner studied under Pidgeon.

Career

Pidgeon began his drawing career by doing comic illustrations for his Technical High School magazine; at 16 years of age he began a newspaper artist cadetship at ''The Sunday Times''. He studied for a period of 6 months under J. S. Watkins In September 1926, at the age of 17, he had his first comic strip published. ''The Trifling Triplets'' appeared in ''The Sunday News''. He was also published regularly in the (Sydney) ''Evening News'' where he was employed as a cadet artist. He also worked in Sydney for the ''Daily Guardian'', the ''Sun'', the ''World'' and the Sydney ''Daily Telegraph''. Editor George Warnecke soon employed Pidgeon as an illustrator on the Smith's Weekly. He also illustrated for ''The'' ''Telegraph in the 1930s.''

Art Reviews

Pidgeon wrote occasional art reviews for the Daily Telegraph for a number of years, and returned to this in 1974 when his eyesight was failing. Provided by Wikipedia