POL (magazine)

Last updated

POL was a monthly magazine that was first published by Gareth Powell Publishing in Australia in the late 1960s. It is considered to have played an important role in raising awareness of the status of women, and established new standards in terms of content, design and photography.

In March–May 2003, the Australian National Portrait Gallery in Old Parliament House, Canberra held a retrospective of POL magazine which it called Portrait of a Generation. [1] A catalogue was published for the occasion with an introduction which said:

POL magazine was a perfect fit for its time. The magazine first appeared in Sydney in 1968, produced by Gareth Powell, an eccentric, entrepreneurial British publisher who knew, above anything else, how to employ talented people and give them the freedom to work. POL quickly came to reflect a changing Australia that had been radicalised by the sixties.

Gareth Powell has been quoted as saying that the name POL stood for nothing, and was chosen by the magazine's first editor, Richard Walsh, because it was short and lent itself to bad puns in headlines.

A major influence on the style of the magazine was the photographic and design team that had started with Chance International , one of the early men's magazines in Australia. The photographers were among the best that Australia had produced, and they were given the opportunity with both POL and Chance to choose the photographs used and to decide how they should be displayed. No other magazine in Australia at that time allowed that sort of involvement by the creative staff.

The only person who was kept well away from the creative process was the publisher and owner, Gareth Powell. He knew printing - and POL set new standards in that area for Australia - and he knew publishing. But the editorial content of the magazine was, in its earliest and finest days, totally under the control of Richard Walsh and a team which contained many of the great editorial talents of Australia. Guest editors included Germaine Greer (1972) and Richard Neville (1974). [1]

After Richard Walsh's departure, and the sale of Pol Magazine to Sungravure in 1972, Maggie Makeig formerly of Everybody's took over as editor. She edited Pol from early 1972 until her untimely death in July 1976 and was the one who organised Australia's first ever nude male centrefold. The star of this Centrefold long before Cleo was launched was Paul du Feu, the former husband of feminist icon Germaine Greer. A friend of Greer's, Makeig also organised and oversaw Germaine as guest editor for an edition of Pol as well as Richard Neville in 1974. She was also responsible for employing David Leigh as art director and brought award winning writers on board. She was revered as a ground breaker with coverlines during the days of Number 96 which featured actress Pat McDonald as Dorrie Evans in evening gown and the line "Charity is not all Balls. Arnold Earnshaw edited POL for 8 months and from 1977 and 1984 the magazine was edited by Robin Ingram who was responsible for recruiting Don Dunstan to act as guest editor, a role he performed from May 1980 for just under a year. David Leigh, who won several international graphic design awards, was Pol's Art Director for a decade from the mid 70s. [1] [2] POL ceased publication in 1986.

Related Research Articles

<i>Schoolkids Oz</i>

Schoolkids Oz was No. 28 of Oz magazine. The issue was, on a special occasion, edited by 5th- and 6th-form children. It was the subject of a high-profile obscenity case in the United Kingdom from June 1971 to 5 August 1971, the longest trial under the 1959 Obscene Publications Act.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leigh Bowery</span> Australian artist and fashion designer

Leigh Bowery was an Australian performance artist, club promoter, and fashion designer. Bowery was known for his flamboyant and outlandish costumes and makeup as well as his performances.

<i>International Times</i> Underground newspapers

International Times is the name of various underground newspapers, with the original title founded in London in 1966 and running until October 1973. Editors included John "Hoppy" Hopkins, David Mairowitz, Roger Hutchinson, Peter Stansill, Barry Miles, Jim Haynes and playwright Tom McGrath. Jack Moore, avant-garde writer William Levy and Mick Farren, singer of The Deviants, also edited at various periods.

<i>Oz</i> (magazine) Australian satirical magazine

Oz was an independently published, alternative/underground magazine associated with the international counterculture of the 1960s. While it was first published in Sydney in 1963, a parallel version of Oz was published in London from 1967. The Australian magazine was published until 1969 and the British version until 1973.

<i>The Skeptic</i> (British magazine) British magazine

The Skeptic is a British non-profit skepticism magazine. It describes itself as "the UK’s longest running and foremost sceptical magazine, which examines science, skepticism, secularism, critical thinking and claims of the paranormal."

<i>The Female Eunuch</i> 1970 book by Germaine Greer

The Female Eunuch is a 1970 book by Germaine Greer that became an international bestseller and an important text in the feminist movement. Greer's thesis is that the "traditional" suburban, consumerist, nuclear family represses women sexually, and that this devitalises them, rendering them eunuchs. The book was published in London in October 1970. It received a mixed reception, but by March 1971, it had nearly sold out its second printing. It has been translated into eleven languages.

Christine Wallace is an Australian political journalist, biographer and academic. She is currently an Australian Research Council DECRA fellow at the National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.

Nick Logan is an English journalist, editor and publisher.

<i>Cleo</i> (magazine)

Cleo is an Australian monthly women's magazine. The magazine was founded in 1972 in Australia; the Australia and New Zealand editions were discontinued in February 2016. Aimed at an older audience than the teenage-focused Australian magazine Dolly, Cleo was published by Bauer Media Group in Sydney and was known for its Cleo Bachelor of the Year award. In June 2020, Cleo was acquired by the Sydney investment firm Mercury Capital.

Nation Review was an Australian Sunday newspaper, which ceased publication in 1981. It was launched in 1972 after independent publisher Gordon Barton bought out Tom Fitzgerald's Nation publication and merged it with his own Sunday Review journal.

Richard Clive Neville was an Australian writer and social commentator who came to fame as an editor of the counterculture magazine OZ in Australia and the United Kingdom in the 1960s and early 1970s. He was educated as a boarder at Knox Grammar School and enrolled for an arts degree at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Australian political magazine The Monthly described Neville as a "pioneer of the war on deference".

<i>The Face</i> (magazine) Music, fashion and culture magazine published in the U.K.

The Face is a British music, fashion, and culture monthly magazine originally published from 1980 to 2004, and relaunched in 2019.

<i>Hippie Hippie Shake</i> British drama film

Hippie Hippie Shake is an unreleased British drama film produced by Working Title Films. It is based on a memoir by Richard Neville, editor of the Australian satirical magazine Oz, and chronicles his relationship with girlfriend Louise Ferrier, the launch of the London edition of Oz amidst the 1960s counterculture, and the staff's trial for distributing an obscene issue. Hippie Hippie Shake stars Cillian Murphy as Richard Neville, with Sienna Miller as Louise.

Chance International was a men's magazine founded in Sydney in 1966 by Gareth Powell Associates, which was basically Gareth Powell in association with Jack de Lissa. It used Playboy and Penthouse magazines as a model, creating a magazine that Australia had not seen before with both pictures of beautiful unclothed ladies and articles worth reading. The magazine was originally printed in Australia with the Griffin Press in Adelaide but almost immediately switched to Hong Kong as high quality printing at an affordable price was not then available in Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Germaine Greer</span> Australian writer and public intellectual

Germaine Greer is an Australian writer and public intellectual, regarded as one of the major voices of the radical feminist movement in the latter half of the 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Festival of Dangerous Ideas</span>

The Festival of Dangerous Ideas (FODI) is Australia's original disruptive festival that encourages debate and critical thinking, co-founded in 2009 by The Ethics Centre held in Sydney, Australia.

Marsha Rowe is an Australian-born journalist, writer and editor now living in the United Kingdom. In 1972, she was co-founder, with Rosie Boycott, of the leading feminist magazine Spare Rib.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gareth Powell</span> British-born Australian author

Gareth Powell was a British-born Australian publisher, journalist, author, and editor.

<i>Blitz</i> (British magazine)

BLITZ was a British fashion and culture magazine published between 1980 and 1991.

Richard Walsh is an Australian publisher, editor, company director, media consultant, lecturer, broadcaster and journalist. For many years he ran the publishing and bookselling firm Angus & Robertson and later he headed the media company Australian Consolidated Press. In those roles he was "one of the most dominant figures in Australian publishing from the early seventies".

References

  1. 1 2 3 POL: Portrait of a Generation, National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
  2. ↑ "Son of Betty brings out the stars". Sydney Morning Herald. 18 May 1980. p. 53. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.