William Pidgeon

[3][4] Pidgeon served in the Royal Australian Navy Reserve between 1927 and 1930 (Service Number S6342).

He studied for a period of 6 months under J. S. Watkins[4] In September 1926, at the age of 17, he had his first comic strip published.

[8] He was also published regularly in the (Sydney) Evening News[9] where he was employed as a cadet artist.

[10] Editor George Warnecke soon employed Pidgeon as an illustrator on the Smith's Weekly.

[5] Warnecke asked Pidgeon to help produce a dummy for a new magazine The Australian Women's Weekly which he did.

The leading lady dominated the strip and most of Wep's gentle humour saw the male on the receiving end.

[14] Pidgeon used an extreme style that has been considered comic, original and modern in approach and has influenced humorous artists since.

He visited Darwin, Northern Territory, Papua New Guinea, Morotai and Borneo.

[24] Pidgeon was one of four local artists represented on the Lane Cove Art Panel.

In March 1968, at the suggestion of this panel, Lane Cove Council commissioned Pidgeon to paint a portrait of Lloyd Rees for their art collection.

The Archibald Prize winner painting of club President Ray Walker went missing.

These included illustrated letters to his wife while working as a war correspondent and artist with Consolidated Press in New Guinea, Borneo, and Morotai in 1943–1945.

The collection was one of the largest donations received by the Memorial over the past ten years.