Michael Leunig
Leunig in 2012
Born	(1945-06-02)2 June 1945 East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Died	19 December 2024(2024-12-19) (aged 79) Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Alma mater	Swinburne Film and Television School
Occupations	Cartoonist poet artist
Years active	1965–2024
Spouse(s)	Pamela Munro ​ (divorced)​ Helga Salwe ​ (m. 1992⁠–⁠2016)​
Children	4
Relatives	Mary Leunig (sister)
Website	leunig.com.au

Michael Leunig (2 June 1945 – 19 December 2024), typically referred to by his pen name Leunig, was an Australian cartoonist, poet and artist. He was best known for his work for Melbourne's The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.

Other works include The Curly Pyjama Letters, cartoon books The Essential Leunig, The Wayward Leunig, The Stick, Goatperson, Short Notes from the Long History of Happiness and Curly Verse, and The Lot, a compilation of his "Curly World" newspaper columns. Leunig also wrote several books of prayers, including A Common Prayer, The Prayer Tree and When I Talk To You.

Leunig was declared an Australian Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia in 1999.

Leunig, a fifth-generation Australian,^[1] was born on 2 June 1945 in East Melbourne, the eldest of five children.^[2][3][4] He said he traced his family's ancestry to the Harz, Holy Roman Empire (now Germany) in the 16th century.^[5] He grew up in Footscray, an inner western suburb of Melbourne, where he went to Footscray North Primary School.^[6]

He then went to Maribyrnong High School, but as the school had not finished being built, he first had to attend classes held at the nearby Melbourne Showgrounds in Ascot Vale.^[7] He failed his final year examinations, twice.^[7]

After working as a labourer in an abattoir,^[8] Leunig enrolled at the Swinburne Film and Television School,^[9] where he was at first interested in making documentaries.^{[citation needed]}

He was conscripted in the Vietnam War call-up, but he registered as a conscientious objector; he was rejected on health grounds when it was revealed that he was deaf in one ear.^[10]

Leunig began his cartoon career while at Swinburne in 1965^[11] when his cartoons appeared in the Monash University student newspaper Lot's Wife.^[12] In the early 1970s his work appeared in the radical/satirical magazines Nation Review, The Digger, and London's Oz magazine, as well as mainstream publications including Newsday and Woman's Day.^{[citation needed]}

The main outlet for Leunig's work was the daily Fairfax Media newspapers, Melbourne's The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation also provided airtime to Leunig to discuss his views on a range of political and philosophical issues.^[13]

He continued to contribute cartoons for the Saturday edition of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald until he was sacked in August 2024, along with a number of other staff, as a cost-cutting measure.^[14]

Leunig's drawings were done with a sparse and quivering line, usually in black and white with ink wash; the human characters always drawn with exaggerated noses. This style served him well in his early years, when he gained a loyal following for his quirky take on social issues. He also made increasingly frequent forays into a personal fantasy world of whimsy, featuring small figures with teapots balanced on their heads, grotesquely curled hair and many ducks.^[15]

Leunig frequently satirised concepts such as Americanisation, greed, consumerism, corporations and warmongering, in a personal proclamation against the "war on terror".^{[citation needed]} Readers and critics took special note of his parodies of political matters, especially those concerning former Australian prime minister John Howard and former American president George W. Bush. These earned Leunig a description as a "political cartoonist",^[16] although only some of his works were political in nature or reference.

His work also frequently explored spiritual, religious and moral themes.^{[citation needed]}

From a very early stage in his career, Leunig often included his own handwritten poetry within his cartoons;^[17] subsequently he also published books of poetry. He was very open about his themes, in interviews about his work.^[18][19][20]

In the series of cartoons that Leunig created, a number of characters persistently appeared, including:

• The Duck^[21]
• Mr Curly – a contented character who is at ease in the natural world^[22][23]
• Vasco Pyjama – a restless wanderer who sometimes seeks the counsel of Mr Curly^[23]

Leunig's cartoons were occasionally a source of controversy. A colleague referred to his return to political cartooning in the late 1990s as his "Bob Dylan goes electric" moment.^[24] In 2008, he wrote "Artists must never shrink from a confrontation with society or the state."^[25]

Leunig opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, commenting that "if a cartoonist is representing the government line on Iraq, they're nothing better than a propagandist".^[16]

In 2006, Fairfax Media partially censored a Leunig cartoon criticising the then prime minister, John Howard; the cartoon was published in Victoria but not in New South Wales.^[26]

Leunig stated his opposition to the Israeli government. Three of his cartoons between 2004 and 2006 drew letters of protest nationally and internationally.^{[citation needed]} He partially defined his position in 2006, saying that the Israeli Government had "gravely mishandled" the situation in Palestine, and "it bothers me deeply. It is my right to express it".^[16]

Another supposed Leunig cartoon came to international attention after it was entered in an Iranian competition conceived by the newspaper Hamshahri as retaliation for the Muhammad cartoons controversy. Leunig denied he had submitted the cartoon,^[27] and demanded that it be withdrawn, which it was.^[27] It later emerged that the cartoon had been submitted as a prank by Richard Cooke, a contributor to the Australian comedic team The Chaser.^[28]

In November 2018, Leunig's 30-year association with the Melbourne Comedy Festival came to an end, after artists expressed concerns about being associated with Leunig's anti-vaccination views, and opposition to the marriage equality plebiscite. Leunig had designed the logo for the festival each year since 1988.^[29]

In September 2021, Leunig's cartoon contributions for the editorial page in the Monday edition of The Age were ended following the paper's rejection for publication of a cartoon he had drawn in response to COVID-19 vaccination requirements in Australia.^[30][31] The cartoon compared resistance to vaccine requirements to the Tank Man in Tiananmen Square.^[32]

In 1986, Leunig decorated a Melbourne tram with cartoon characters, sponsored by the Victorian Government.^[33]

In 1999, Leunig was declared an Australian Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia.^[3][34]

In 2006, Australian musician Gyan Evans released the album Billy the Rabbit, based on the poetry of Leunig. Gyan and Leunig launched the album at the Melbourne Writers Festival, with Leunig illustrating during Gyan's singing. They also performed together at the Byron Writers Festival and the Sydney Opera House.^[35]

Leunig performed at the opening ceremony of the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games, wearing a duck costume.^[36] That same year, for his work on Southern Star, Leunig was co-recipient of the 2006 APRA Music Award together with Christopher Willcock.^[37]

In 2009, he created an iGoogle theme.^[38]

In 2016, Metrosideros leunigii, the oldest described fossil species of the flowering plant genus Metrosideros, was named after Leunig.^[39]

In 2020, Leunig was the winner of the Ernie Award for his cartoon of mothers "being too busy on Instagram".^[40]

Several Leunig poems have been set to music by composers including Paul Stanhope,^[41] and, for the Song Company, the composers Alice Chance, Drew Crawford, James Wade, Kate Moore, Kate Neal, Katy Abbott, Lachlan Skipworth, Lyle Chan, Mark Viggiani, Robert Davidson and Ruth McCall.^[42][41]

Leunig's first marriage, to Pamela Munro, ended in divorce. He married his second wife, Helga, in 1992 but they separated in the 2010s.^[43] Leunig had four children.^[44]

A documentary film about his life by Kasimir Burgess, The Leunig Fragments, was released in 2020 and revealed various difficulties that Leunig experienced with family relationships.^[43] He did not attend his parents' funerals^[45] and was not in regular contact with his siblings.^[43]

His sister, Mary Leunig, is also an accomplished cartoonist.^[46] In December 2019, she accused Leunig of sexually abusing her during childhood in a series of cartoons posted to her Facebook account.^[47]

As of 2020, he had a studio in Northcote, Melbourne, and a property in north-east Victoria.^[43]

Leunig died in Melbourne, in the early hours of 19 December 2024, at the age of 79.^[48][49]

Collections of press cartoons and original art and/or poems

Multi-decade compilations

• Official website
• Michael Leunig at IMDb
• Michael Leunig discography at Discogs
• "Michael Leunig". Leunig interviewed by Jane Hutcheon in December 2017 on One Plus One (ABC TV, 27 mins)