Biography: Ball, Murray Hone

‘Let’s see ’em replace THIS with nylon!’

A single-frame cartoon showing the interior of a farm shed, where two men in black singlets are decapitating sheep. A third man holds a newspaper with the headline ‘New export: Ghana wants NZ sheep heads’. The cartoon is captioned ‘Let’s see ’em replace this with nylon!’ An inset excerpt from a newspaper article explains that the establishment of a nylon industry in New Zealand was ‘a slap in the face for sheepfarmers’.

Murray Ball produced regular single-frame cartoons like this one for the Manawatū Daily Times newspaper between 1958 and 1960 and the Dominion between 1962 and 1963. Ball eventually broke away from the visual and thematic influence of British cartoonist Carl Giles which characterised his earliest cartoons. This 1963 cartoon illustrates his gradual shift towards recognisably New Zealand scenes and landscapes.

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library

Reference: <i>Dominion</i>, 25 May 1963, p.14

by Murray Ball

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

How to cite this page

Tim Shoebridge. 'Ball, Murray Hone', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 2022. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/cartoon/47666/lets-see-em-replace-this-with-nylon (accessed 25 June 2026).