Cartoonist For Daily Times Introducing “Waite”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27260, 10 December 1949, Page 6

Cartoonist For Daily Times Introducing “Waite”

A cartoonist. Keith Waite, has joined the staff of the Otago Daily Times. Aged 22, Mr Waite trained as a teacher at the Auckland Training College, and for a year taught in Taranaki. His principal interest lay in cartooning, and he became a contributor to the Taranaki Daily News, New Plymouth. At the end of 1947 he left the teaching profession to attend Elam School of Art, Auckland. He remained at art school until last May. During this period, Mr Waite practised as a free-lance cartoonist with considerable success. He maintained his contributions to the Taranaki Daily News, and his work was accepted by the Weekly News, Auckland, and other publications. Early this year, he did cartoons for’the New Zealand Herald, Auckland, during the absence of the Herald’s cartoonist, Mr Gordon Minhinnick. A few weeks before the general election Mr Waite was invited to join the Daily Times, and after a few days in the press gallery, in the closing stages of the parliamentary session,

when he made preliminary studies of political personalities, he came to Dunedin and commenced the series of cartoons that will now be a regular feature in this newspaper. He has still to familiarise himself with the lineaments and characteristics of the public men and the topography of Otago. As he does so, his work will in some aspects assume a more local pertinence, although the national scene will remain his main concern. .» In his leisure time, Mr Waite has taken ah active part in most sports. He is a Rugby football enthusiast, and played regularly in Auckland until last season, when an injury forced him to retire from the game. Mr Waite has met and sketched a number of famous personalities. He achieves his life-like impressions from observation and on-the-spot sketches, and at pre-election meetings and the deliberations of the City Council he aroused the interest of many visitors as he plied his pencil.