Ian F. Grant

Ian Fraser Grant (born March 15, 1940) is a New Zealand historian,writer, editor and publisher. He founded the New Zealand Cartoon Archive in 1992 and has written widely on the history of cartooning in New Zealand.

Grant was born in Wellington and educated at Victoria, University of Wellington.

He has had a varied career in journalism and advertising, beginning with the role of Salient editor in 1960. He was a founding editorial and marketing director of Fourth Estate Limited, publishers of the National Business Review, from 1970, the founder and founding editor of NBR Marketplace (from 1972) and founding director of NBR Books.He has also worked in a number of roles in the book publishing industry.

He co-founded Fraser Books, a publishing partnership, with his wife Diane Grant in 1984.

Grant has written a number of book and articles on the history of New Zealand cartooning, beginning with The Unauthorized Version: A Cartoon History of New Zealand in 1980. This interest led him to found the New Zealand Cartoon Archive at the National Library of New Zealand in 1992 (later expanded to become the New Zealand Cartoon and Comics Archive in 2019). He chaired the Archive's various governing bodies between 1992 and 2019.

Grant held residencies at the Stout Centre for New Zealand Studies in 2007, 2009 and 2010 and became an Adjunct Research Associate at the Centre in 2012. He became the Alexander Turnbull Library's first Adjunct Scholar in 2014.He received the Outstanding Achievement Award at the New Zealand Media Awards in 2012 and 2017, the latter for his work with the Cartoon Archive.

In 2019, Grant published Lasting Impressions: the story of New Zealand's Newspapers, 1840-1920, the first comprehensive history of New Zealand newspapers published since Guy Scholefield's Newspapers in New Zealand was published in 1958. The New Zealand Review of Books described Lasting Impressions as "a compelling, often delightful read, and a truly magnificent addition to the scholarship of journalism here".