Ohio History Journal

  • 1
  •  
  • 2
  •  
  • 3
  •  
  • 4
  •  
  • 5
  •  
  • 6
  •  
  • 7
  •  
  • 8
  •  
  • 9
  •  
  • 10
  •  
  • 11
  •  
  • 12
  •  
  • 13
  •  
  • 14
  •  
  • 15
  •  
  • 16
  •  
  • 17
  •  
  • 18
  •  
  • 19
  •  
  • 20
  •  
  • 21
  •  
  • 22
  •  

OHIO ARTIST IN AUSTRALIA: LIVINGSTON HOPKINS

OHIO ARTIST IN AUSTRALIA: LIVINGSTON HOPKINS

 

by FREDERICK D. KERSHNER, JR.*

 

In times present and past Americans have complained bitterly

about the lack of knowledge of the United States revealed by

foreigners. Commonly they have attributed this ignorance to nation-

alistic myopia, upper-class snobbery, intellectual narcissism, or a

combination of the three. One hundred percent Yankees like to

supplement their critiques with gratuitous prophecies of impending

retribution, not the least feature of which is to be the withdrawal

of American attentions, economic and otherwise. It is to be pre-

sumed that a comfortable feeling of self-righteousness results from

the contrast of American virtue with the sins of the stranger. To

such an average citizen the idea that he himself may be guilty of

identical myopia, snobbery, and narcissism toward the brash young-

nations-with-a-future of our own day must come with a sense of

real shock.

This shall serve as an introduction to the story of Livingston

Hopkins, the Ohioan who became Australia's favorite cartoonist.

At the turn of the century his sketches were a byword in the

Southwest Pacific, equally admired in the woolshearer's outback

hut, the city laborer's cottage, and the wealthy squatter's clubroom.

"There are few people throughout the length and breadth of

Australasia who are not familiar with the name of 'Hop,' of the

Sydney Bulletin," declared an Australian journalist of the nineties.

"Many of Mr. Hopkins' sketches have become immortal . . . [and]

. . . occasionally convulse the whole Continent with laughter."1

As time passed the belief in Hopkins' greatness as a cartoonist

deepened. By 1913 he was pronounced Australia's best cartoonist,2

and a few years later, "one of the greatest cartoonists whom Sydney

 

* Frederick D. Kershner, Jr., is an associate professor of history at Ohio University.

During the year 1951-52 he held a Fulbright lecturing and research fellowship at

the University of Sydney.

1 Charles Bright, "Mr. Livingston Hopkins; 'Hop' of the Bulletin," Cosmos Maga-

zine, I (1895), 349-353.

2 Building (Sydney, N.S.W.), July 12, 1913, pp. 89-92.

113