Len Fox

Background and early years

Fox was born in Melbourne. His uncle was the painter Emanuel Phillips Fox, who died when Len Fox was aged 10. In 1984 Fox donated a painting Sunlight Effect painted by his uncle (ca. 1889) to the National Gallery of Australia, in memory of his mother.

Fox studied science at the University of Melbourne, concurrently earning a Diploma of Education. He taught at Scotch College from 1928–32, then spent four years in Europe where he witnessed the rise of Fascism. On returning to Melbourne, he joined the Movement Against War and Fascism and the Communist Party of Australia. He was to remain a member until 1970, long after most 'comrades' had quit as a reaction to the Stalinist purges.

Career

His career as a journalist began in 1936 with a pamphlet entitled Spain!.

He moved to Sydney in 1940, and immediately started writing for left-wing weeklies, starting with The Voice of State Labor. He took up painting, producing an array of left-wing propagandist posters, and covers for his many booklets, such as Australia's Guilty Men, a 32-page diatribe against (inter alia) Prime Minister Robert Menzies for his dealings with Axis countries in the early days of WWII. When the State Labor Party collapsed in 1944, he took up with The Tribune where he worked from 1946 to 1955.

In 1955 he married Mona Brand, a fellow Communist and idealist, who was to become a respected playwright. At the instigation of Wilfred Burchett, they spent 1955–56 in Hanoi, he working as a print journalist, she for Radio Hanoi.

Their home for the next 50 years was a modest terrace house in Little Surrey Street, near Kings Cross, in an era when the area was not fashionable. They were together when he died.

Selected publications

(not included are the many dozens of pamphlets and booklets published for various left-wing organizations)

Paintings