Dorothy Wall (1894-1942), was born and educated in New Zealand. Her professional life as an illustrator was spent in Australia, as creator of the celebrated Blinky Bill (1933 then the complete edition in 1939). She was successful in the early Thirties but her divorce and subsequent isolation with her child left her ill and depressed, leaving her to pick up intermittent work from her publishers Angus & Robertson (Australian Dictionary of Biography). In 1937 she returned to New Zealand where she began to be more successful, illustrating for newspapers. In 1941 she felt confidently enough to return to Australia but her health deteriorated and she died of pneumonia in 1942.

From Bridget you can see how distinctive was her style and attitude to telling a story. She made shapes and drew bodies in a way many people could have done, but she could draw better than they could. Textures and patterns are controlled and never eclipse the narrative. Her creation of Ginger Pop is not perhaps very impressive, a sort of gathering of graphic cliches (baggy boots have been much overdone). I adore her stylised trees and bulging clouds - no great advance, but she does it well.

In the latter colour plates when no landscape is evoked, I like the way she veers in the one image between the Anthropomorphic (more little Bee Boots) and the actual swarming of the bees. She was much criticised for Anthropomorphism but only by the more painfully literal of her critics. I have no inherent dislike of elephants in waistcoats, knowing the illustrator trusts me that I know it doesn't occur in Nature. If a child is subsequently disappointed that Haute Couture is not encouraged at the Zoo, well, tough luck,- life is full of tiny disappointments.