Fred Booty moved to Perth from Sydney in 1896. He was descended from a long line of artists and lithographers and supported himself by designing advertisements while also submitting cartoons and illustrations to local and goldfields newspapers. He quickly gained wide-spread popularity through his caricatures of public figures, most notably, the Premier of Western Australia, John Forrest. In 1904 he returned to Sydney and applied for a job with the Victorian Stamp Co. In 1905 he joined a lithography partnership in London. He later moved to the United States of America to work as a stage designer and caricaturist. He died in Boston in 1914.
