Anemoia.
Work by D.H. Gilmore and Philip Madill
Nearly a century ago David Hunter Gilmore created his first illustrated children’s book, Cuthbert the
Caterpillar. He went on to craft more stories and pictures of a unique miniature world peopled with
resourceful and adventurous insects. These captivating caterpillars, bumblebees, crickets, ants and many
other tiny creatures have charmed successive generations of children and their parents throughout
Australasia.
In this exhibition we bring original paintings and drawings from the archive of D.H. Gilmore and pair them with the works of his grandson, Dunedin artist Philip Madill and writing from his daughter Helen Gilmore.
Nearly a century ago David Hunter Gilmore created his first illustrated children’s book, Cuthbert the
Caterpillar. He went on to craft more stories and pictures of a unique miniature world peopled with
resourceful and adventurous insects. These captivating caterpillars, bumblebees, crickets, ants and many
other tiny creatures have charmed successive generations of children and their parents throughout
Australasia.
The journey to his success as an author/illustrator began rather unpromisingly one wet afternoon during
the 1920s Depression in the woolshed of a small North Island sheep farm which held most of the previous
season’s clip, unsold. His brother had wandered mournfully chalking on the bales with a piece of red
raddle a symbol of frustrated hopes: a caterpillar in a field of lettuces with the motto NIX SPONDULIX (no
money). He called it the Glen Murray Crest. That little goggle –eyed creature stuck firmly in Gilmore’s
imagination to eventually become the prototype of Cuthbert the Caterpillar.
David Gilmore was born in Auckland Feb 15 th 1904, and had tried his hand at school teaching, journalism
and advertising agency work before his talent as a story-teller and watercolour illustrator was recognised.
His love of books and writing stories was fostered and encouraged by his mother, a school principal. His
father, who was a talented amateur artist himself, and whose personal friends included Goldie and
Kennet –Watkins, would take him to visit art galleries. However, as he has said in his (unpublished)
memoir, ‘…to neither of them is it likely to have occurred that these would be almost the sole assets upon
which the whole of my adult livelihood would depend’.
At the age of about nine young David, immersed in a world of books, had decided to become an author.
Artistic talent, however, was slower to reveal itself. At “drawing” at the age of eight at King’s College he
confessed to being ‘… utterly hopeless.’ “My efforts to reproduce in pencil an autumn leaf pinned to a
blackboard … certainly gave little indication that later in life I would become a professional artist and
illustrator.” However, one has only to view the colourful swirl of the autumn leaves pictured in The Tale of
Gregory Grasshopper (1947) to see how he eventually managed to capture them in his own unique style.
Work as a cadet reporter on the NZ Herald brought him into touch with the late Trevor Lloyd who in the
1920s was resident artist and political cartoonist for the Herald and Auckland Weekly News, probably best
remembered today for his magnificent etchings of native flora and fauna. Although his objective was
always to write, Gilmore was inspired to imitate some of Lloyd’s little characters and at odd moments
would ‘doodle away on bits of copy paper’. One day, Lloyd noticed the drawings he had made, ‘…snatched
up the block, glared at my artistic efforts and asked “who taught you to draw?” I replied truthfully that I’d
never learned to draw. “Well it’s not bad; keep it up. You may improve with time”. This “faint praise”
encouraged the young reporter to feel that art work might be worth cultivating. He began to occasionally
invite himself into Lloyd’s studio to watch him at work and would later say that ‘… whatever skill I have
acquired in graphic art I owe almost entirely to the opportunities I have had of observing really first class
artists at work …’
In 1927 he left journalism try out his ‘creative skills’ in the field of advertising and commercial art in which
he was to remain for the next fourteen years, eventually settling in Sydney in 1938, while continuing to
write in his spare time. With Gulliver’s Travels as one of his main sources of inspiration, and the memory
of his brother’s Glen Murray crest, he conceived the idea of a satirical novel in which the protagonists
were to be insects, among them a small green caterpillar named Cuthbert.
The satire came to nothing. Instead, the result, written and illustrated largely for his own amusement,
turned out to be a story that would appeal to a child’s mind rather than an adult’s. Although the idea of
writing illustrated children’s books had never occurred to him before, in creating The tale of Cuthbert the
Caterpillar and Wilfred the Wasp he had found a medium in which he felt completely at home, and
discovered that text and illustration were complementary to each other. ‘I just move from page to page.
Sometimes the text comes first; sometimes a drawing as the ‘feel ‘of the work demands.’
Cuthbert the Caterpillar was completed in 1928.However, he then became, as Gilmore observed, ‘the
most travelled insect in the world’ as he was rejected by publisher after publisher for the next ten years.
Finally, by chance, Gilmore – then working in an advertising firm - showed his work to a representative of
a printing firm who asked to borrow the manuscript. Some months later he was astonished by a request
from the printing firm to publish the book. Cuthbert finally made his debut in print in 1941
The book was a great success, and following it, came a string of successors. With characters such as
Gregory Grasshopper, Antony Ant and Christopher Cricket, D.H. Gilmore became a very well-known
children’s book writer as the decade progressed. One of the reasons for his books’ success was the
painstaking care he took with his illustrations. All the characters are based on real insects, first drawn as
accurately as possible from actual specimens or photographs and thereafter adapted and simplified to the
barest essentials to which were then added the individual quirks and oddities which gave them identity.
Some of the stories, with line drawings, appeared in NSW school magazines, helping him to achieve a
wide following, and the Sydney Bulletin referred to him as the ‘Disney of Australia’. However, of this he
remarked “I think it was meant as a compliment but I’ve often wondered how Walt would have felt if he’d
been called the “Gilmore of America.”
The 1940s were successful and enjoyable years. However, the bubble had burst by the 1950s. Faced with
the post war realities of a sudden escalation of publishing costs, fierce competition from the flow of cheap
books from overseas and the subsequent raised retail pricing of his books, he recognised that to continue
would completely uneconomic. He returned to New Zealand, settled in Christchurch and resumed a
career in journalism.
However, writing and art continued as an absorbing passion of his spare time. He believed that writing
and drawing should be fun and he passed on this belief to his two daughters. We were always encouraged
to write stories and draw pictures, while Dad would entertain us for hours with stories, creating new
imaginary miniature worlds and magical characters to amuse us, and regularly turned out new
manuscripts complete with illustrations. The greatest excitement on each birthday was the hand-painted
and personally relevant birthday card that Dad would produce for each of us – he continued the tradition
for his grandchildren right up until his death in 1982.
By and large, neither of us was bothered by insect life around us as the books had personified the
creatures and they had become our ‘friends’ (how could you fear a bumblebee when its name was
Benjamin?) The notable exceptions were wasps. To this day I am petrified of wasps and that is down to
Dad’s reaction to them. While his Wilfred was more of a ‘bad boy’ than an out-and-out villain, the real
things terrified him. The intrusion of a wasp into the house always caused a drama. Dad would evacuate
the entire family to the lawn outside while, armed with insect spray, gardening gloves and a rolled up
newspaper, he returned to do battle and dispose of the threat.
In retirement he was able to enjoy another bout of fame. The 1970s saw the re-publication of all twelve
illustrated books as part of an Australian Children’s Classics Collection. He was delighted by this revival,
especially as it brought him many letters and good wishes from a new generation of children as well as
their parents, all of which he replied to with warmth. In addition, a new set of stories and illustrations
were commissioned for a series of ‘Little Books’ and he set to work on these, producing some of his most
ethereal artwork. The Little World of D.H. Gilmore appeared in 1982.
He died on March 13 1982 in Rangiora. The majority of the three generations of his descendants are now
living in Dunedin, and his grandson, Philip Madill, is a Dunedin-based artist who draws inspiration from his
grandfather’s work.
David Hunter Gilmore has left behind him a superb legacy in his works of art for all of us, children and
adults alike. It is important to understand that his drawings and watercolours are inextricably bound up in
the storytelling. That was how he worked. He was an author who illustrated but, equally, was an
illustrator who envisaged a story through his artwork. His message to all those who appreciated his work
was:
“To those to whom my work has brought pleasure I can only say that the enjoyment has been mutual and
it gives me pleasure to feel we’ve shared the fun together. To those who may enjoy them in the future I
can only hope that these eccentric “children” of mine will bring as much laughter into your life as they
have in my own”
Helen Gilmore 2024