Michael Atchison
About
Michael Atchison was born in Victoria, Australia, on 8 April 1933. He studied at King’s College, Adelaide, from 1946 to 1950, and while at school provided cartoons for Man magazine, a radio journal and advertising agencies. From 1952 to 1954 Atchison studied at the Adelaide University Teachers’ College, and afterwards went to the South Australia School of Art. He then became an art teacher with the Education Department, mainly teaching in Adelaide high schools, including King’s College.
In 1960 Atchison and his wife moved to London, where he worked as art director in an advertising agency. He was also a freelance cartoonist, contributing cartoons to a number of publications, including Time and Tide, Punch – including covers – and the Sunday Mirror. In 1967 Atchison returned to Australia, and joined the Sydney Daily Mirror as pocket cartoonist. In 1968 he became political cartoonistforthe Adelaide Advertiser.
Atchison’s work is published in the Sydney Mirror and the Adelaide Advertiser. Since 1989 he has produced a daily strip called ‘Word for Word’, which deals with the origin of English words and phrases, and is syndicated to newspapers in the USA, UK, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Japan, Taiwan, and Papua New Guinea.
Holdings
9 uncatalogued originals [PU0042 – 0050]
References used in biography
- Mark Bryant Dictionary of Twentieth-Century British Cartoonists and Caricaturists (Ashgate, Aldershot, 2000), p.9.
- ‘Michael Atchison’ at Design and Art Australia Online – http://daaouat.library.unsw.edu.au:81/main/read/306