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. 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". By December 1897, James Hartt was living in Barrack-street in Perth.
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. Cecil's mother died in January 1906 at Tallangatta after having "been in indifferent health for some time". In April 1906, Cecil's father left Tallangatta for Melbourne after Dyring's store changed hands. His father remarried in 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. In August 1907 a cartoon by Hartt was accepted and published in The Bulletin magazine. During this period, Hartt began taking instruction in drawing from Alex Sass, an older artist who was working as a cartoonist for Melbourne Punch. Hartt also studied art in Melbourne with the artist Harold Gye. In 1908, Hartt had a drawing published in Comments, a short-lived Melbourne journal. He also contributed to Randolph Bedford's mining and literary journal, The Clarion (at that time Melbourne's answer to The Bulletin).
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.
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 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. In 1913, Hartt was living in Hunter-street, Sydney, working as a freelance artist. 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. They were a part of a wider social group of Sydney-based writers and artists, 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.