Geoffrey Dutton AO (1922–1998) was a prodigious writer and editor whose published works comprise poetry, novels, children's books, biographies, art history and literary criticism. While studying at the University of Adelaide he met Max Harris, co-founder of the literary magazine Angry Penguins, and became a regular contributor to the magazine. Dutton joined the Royal Australian Air Force in 1941 and was a flying instructor, surviving a plane crash late in the war. His first collection of poetry, Night Flight and Sunrise, was published in 1944. After the war, he studied English literature at Magdalen College, Oxford and lectured in English at Adelaide University. He and Harris founded the Australian Book Review in 1961 and later Dutton founded the publishing house Sun Books. He also worked as an editor for Penguin, the Australian and the Bulletin. Dutton's work regularly appeared in major literary journals and he published many collections of poetry, including Antipodes in Shoes (1958), which won the Grace Leven Poetry Prize. In 1966 he edited Australia and the Monarchy, and in 1977, Republican Australia? He later became a founding member of the Australian Republican Movement.
Throughout his life Frank Hinder made caricature drawings in his characteristic modernist style, often appending wry comments on topical subjects in current affairs. This portrait was made after the release of Dutton's book Republican Australia?
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Enid Hawkins 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
© Enid Hawkins (nee Hinder)
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