MONTREAL -- He had a sculptor's heart, but his calling was with cartoons. Although Peter Whalley devoted his life to making sculpture, it was his wit and deft drawing skills that put food on his table. "Cartooning won out," the reluctant caricaturist once admitted. Sculpture was less lucrative, and became the runner-up by default.
As a much sought-after illustrator and political cartoonist, Mr. Whalley plied his trade with Maclean's magazine and the CBC, as well as collaborating on many books with writers such as Vancouver author Eric Nicol.
Mr. Whalley's edgy cartoons earned him a loyal following. He delighted readers with his skewed vision of Canada's sacred cows, lampooning everything from public health care to national bilingualism. His sparse drawings and distinct, dry sense of humour prompted Pierre Berton to call Mr. Whalley one of the most inventive cartoonists he'd ever read.
His daughter, visual artist Elizabeth Whalley, said her father was inspired by great political artists of the past, such as George Grosz, the German Dadaist. "He saw humour, imagination and drawing as tools: weapons to be used to combat the greed, hypocrisy and pomposity that so often accompanies power and wealth."
Peter Whalley was born in Brockville, Ont. Both his father and grandfather were pastors with the Anglican church. His grew up in Halifax and his home life was filled with art and music and a beloved pet parrot that made Peter break out into fits of laughter by making wisecracks every time his brother played the piano. He attended the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, where he cultivated his gift for caricature. He sold his first cartoon at the age of 16.
He was determined to become a serious artist when he graduated from college, but his career aspirations were put on hold when the Second World War broke out and he joined the merchant marine. After the war, he took up residence in Montreal, and began studying painting with Herman Heimlich while working as a cartoonist for the Montreal Standard.
He met Barbara Smith and the two were married in 1948. The newlyweds purchased a piece of farmland in Morin Heights, where Mr. Whalley built the couple's home. He later constructed a studio on the property and a modified geodesic dome that served as a foundry, where he cast his bronze sculptures.
Although he was charmed by the pastoral splendour of living in the Laurentians, he once joked that winter reduced sculpting and drawing to mere diversions, and that his main occupation was shovelling snow.
John Robert Colombo, author of such classics as The Monster Book of Canadian Monsters, said that in the 1950s and 1960s, Duncan Macpherson of the Toronto Star was considered the king of cartoons and Mr. Whalley was the court jester. But when Mr. Colombo first hired Mr. Whalley to illustrate one of his books, he said he was surprised to learn just how serious a journalist the "court jester" turned out to be.
Mr. Whalley's heightened sense of professionalism is especially evident in his Maclean's magazine cover for Aug. 16, 1958. The bright, colourful tableau illustrates the different ways children of his generation and modern children celebrated summer.
The thoughtful composition, featuring Depression-era children climbing apple trees and frolicking in a pond, is juxtaposed against a muted grey-blue vignette of four boys from the 1950s, glued to the images flashing on a black-and-white television set.
Comic art reviewer Bryan Munn called the illustration "a perfect mute comment on technological change and the loss of innocence, issues that continue to preoccupy us today."
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Mr. Whalley's career was firing on all cylinders. He crafted countless cover illustrations for Maclean's while featuring regularly on the CBC's Observer television program, where he drew cartoons of the week's top news stories.
Mr. Whalley also began making film strips for the National Film Board and published his first book, Man on a Wire, with Mr. Nicol, an award-winning humorist, in 1963. Two years later, he was named political cartoonist of the year at the International Salon of Caricature and Cartoon.
Mr. Whalley's last illustrated publication, Canadian Politics Unplugged, was in 2003. In retirement, he found himself free to explore his passion for sculpture without restraint. His bronze, welded steel and recycled found-metal sculptures are sophisticated works that incorporate a Dada aesthetic.
The Whalley Ruin, his final exhibition, was last summer. The show took place against the remains of his collapsed foundry.
PETER WHALLEY
Peter Whalley was born in Brockville, Ont., on Feb. 20, 1921. He died in a hospital in Saint-Jérôme, Que., on Sept. 18, 2007. He leaves his wife, Barbara, and daughters Martha, Elizabeth and Jennifer.
