James Cruthers

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Sir James Winter Cruthers, AO (born 20 December 1924)^[1] is an Australian business executive and philanthropist.

He was educated at Claremont Central State School and Perth Technical College, leaving school at 16. He started work at the Daily News newspaper in Perth in 1939 and joined the forces in 1940. During the Second World War he was a RAAF pilot.^[2]

After the war he became a cadet journalist at the Daily News, and was there when the paper hired Paul Rigby as a cartoonist.^[3]

In 1958 he was appointed as founding general manager of WA television station TVW Channel 7. He later became chairman of the station.^[4]

His past chairmanships include the Australian Film Commission and News American Publishing Inc where he was personal adviser to Rupert Murdoch.^[4]

In 1999 he was chairman of The Sunday Times newspaper.^[4]

Sir James is a philanthropist who established TVW Telethon and Perth’s annual Christmas pageant.^[5]He supports many charitable groups, including the Lions Eye Institute (where he was a founding patron)^[4], UWA’s Hackett Foundation^[6], Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital^[7], the Association of the Blind (WA) Guide Dogs^[8] and the St George's Cathedral Restoration project^[9]. He was the business representative on UWA’s Berndt Museum of Anthropology’s advisory board^[10].

Sir James and his wife Sheila are strong supporters of the arts. Lady Cruthers is especially interested in twentieth-century art by Australian women, and the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art is a collection of artworks by Australian women artists from the 1890s to the present^[11]. Sir James and Lady Cruthers have supported the National Gallery of Australia and the US National Portrait Gallery.^[12] in May 2008 Sir James and Lady Cruthers donated the Cruthers Collection - more than 400 works by 155 Australian female artists including Grace Cossington Smith, Margaret Preston and Susan Norrie - to UWA.

In 1998 and 1999 Sir James was conference patron of ‘small screen BIG PICTURE’^[13].

Sir James was awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters by UWA in 2005^[14].

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