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.
Leunig's works include The Curly Pyjama Letters, the cartoon books The Essential Leunig, The Wayward Leunig, The Stick, Goatperson, Short Notes from the Long History of Happiness and Curly Verse as well as 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, was born on 2 June 1945 in East Melbourne, the eldest of five children. He said he traced his family's ancestry to the Harz, Holy Roman Empire (now Germany), in the 16th century. He grew up in Footscray, an inner western suburb of Melbourne, where he went to Footscray North Primary School. 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. He twice failed his final year examinations.
After working as a labourer in an abattoir, Leunig enrolled at the Swinburne Film and Television School, where he was at first interested in making documentaries.
Leunig 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.
Leunig began his cartoon career while studying at Swinburne in 1965 when his cartoons appeared in the Monash University student newspaper Lot's Wife. 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.
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.
Leunig 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.
Leunig's drawings were done with a sparse and quivering line, usually in black and white with ink wash; the human characters often 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.
Leunig frequently satirised concepts such as Americanisation, greed, consumerism, corporations and warmongering, in a personal proclamation against the "war on terror". 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", although only some of his works were political in nature or reference. His work also frequently explored spiritual, religious and moral themes.
From a very early stage in his career, Leunig often included his own handwritten poetry within his cartoons; subsequently he also published books of poetry. He was very open about his themes in interviews about his work.
In the series of cartoons that Leunig created, a number of characters persistently appeared, including:
Mr Curly – a contented character who is at ease in the natural world
Vasco Pyjama – a restless wanderer who sometimes seeks the counsel of Mr Curly
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. In 2008, he wrote that "Artists must never shrink from a confrontation with society or the state."
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".
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.