Ronald Percy Renn was born in Fairfield, Melbourne in 1912. His cartoons first appeared in Melbourne newspapers The Age and The Sun in the 1930s - most notable with humorous sports wrap-ups and caricatures of then-current football personalities. From 1940-1946, Renn served in the AIF and his cartoons immediately before and after his service, understandably, focused on the war. From 1947 onwards he provided regular illustrative cartoons to the magazines Life and The New Idea. By the 1950s, he had moved on to drawing for advertisements and, more significantly, painting - a passion which he continued until his passing in December 2010.
This collection of Renn's cartoons has been compiled by his grandson, Jerome Entwisle, from Renn's personal collection. His family are more than familiar with grandpa Renn's many portraits and landscape paintings (which deserve greater recognition in their own right). The family is less familiar, however, with Renn's earlier cartooning work which he kept as cut-outs, in no particular order, in scrap books in a large metal box. It is therefore largely for the enjoyment of Renn's family that this collection has been prepared, although it is hoped that those with an interest in the history and humour of wartime Melbourne will also find some (if not all) of the drawings of interest.
Finally, apologies for the poor quality of some of the pictures. This is due both to the age of the newspapers (which are all at least 60 years old) and the limitations of the scanning device used.
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| Renn (second from left) during his wartime service |
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