Date of Birth: 
About Joe Jonsson
- Nils Josef Jonsson (originally Jönsson) (13 December 1890 – 19 March 1963) was an Australian cartoonist born in Halmstad, Sweden.At age 18 he went to sea for nine years, painting in his spare time.
- In 1915 he "jumped ship" in New Zealand where he worked for a while, then in Australia, finally settling down in Sydney where he studied painting full-time from 1918 to 1920 at the studio of John S.
- Watkins (1866–1942), becoming an instructor himself within a year.
- He worked as cartoonist with Smith's Weekly from 1924 to 1950 when it closed; the last artist still on staff.
- His jokes mostly centred on what he knew best: horses, ships and drunks.Though he produced many gag panels for Smith's Weekly, he is best remembered for "Uncle Joe and his Horse Radish", a coloured strip which first appeared January 1951 in Keith Murdoch's Sunday Herald, later Sun-Herald and was carried by other News Limited papers including Adelaide's Sunday Mail.
- It revolved around the splay-footed racehorse and its owners Joe (Swedish like himself) and his wife Gladys, children Oigle and Doigle, their jockey cousin Manfred and the colourful characters of the racecourse – gamblers, drunks, bookies, nobblers, touts, society belles and so on.Joe was a big powerful and reckless man with a photographic memory and enormous sense of humour.
- He also had a huge appetite for alcohol and a fondness for the "great Australian adjective" but it always came out pronounced "bletty".
- When he was called by Sir John Longstaff "the finest black-and-white artist Australia has produced", Joe's riposte was "Fancy that.
- And me a bletty Swede too!"He was a foundation member of the Society of Australian Black and White Artists.He married Agnes Mary McIntyre in 1927.
- He died of cardiovascular disease in Sydney in 1963, and was survived by his wife, a son and a daughter.
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