Dorothy Wall was born and educated in New Zealand, winning a number of scholarships before studying at the Christchurch School of Art and the Wellington Technical School. She immigrated to Sydney in 1914 and began a career as an illustrator, publishing her work in such periodicals as the Sun newspaper and the Lone Hand. Her first children's story, Tommy Bear and the Zookies, was published in 1920, beginning her significant career as a writer and illustrator of children's books.
Wall provided the illustrations for a number of children's books in the 1920s and 1930s, attracting wide recognition for her drawings of Australian flora and fauna. She is best known for the young koala she first introduced in Blinky Bill: The Quaint Little Australian (1933). Several books followed during the next decade, and The Complete Adventures of Blinky Bill was reprinted fifteen times between 1940 and 1965. She returned to New Zealand in 1937, suffering from illness and depression. She contributed illustrations to several newspapers, but she missed Australia's climate and was back in Sydney by July 1941. She died of pneumonia in January 1942.
Blinky Bill has remained a popular character in Australian culture. Wall's books have been adapted by a number of writers for book publication, television and film.
(Source: Adapted from entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography)
