Iconic Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig has died aged 79.
Leunig’s death was announced on Instagram on Thursday evening, along with one of his works depicting an angel floating in the twilight.
The image was accompanied by a brief statement.
“The pen has dried and the ink no longer flows; however, Mr. Curly and his ducks will remain engraved in our hearts, dear and eternal,” the statement began.
“Michael Leunig passed away peacefully today, in the early hours of December 19, 2024,” he continued.
“During his final days, he was surrounded by his children, loved ones and sunflowers, accompanied, as always, by his dear old friends, Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven.”
Iconic Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig has died aged 79. Leunig’s death was announced on Instagram on Thursday evening, along with one of his works depicting an angel floating in the twilight.
It wasn’t long before the post was flooded with tributes.
‘Oh no, I’m devastated. A great loss for society and for everyone he touched. What an absolute legend,’ one follower wrote.
‘Miguel. You really lived the words ‘to yourself, be true’. I will carry a duckling and a teapot in my heart to honor your joy and comfort. Much love to the Leunig family,” added another.
‘Oh no! My heart just broke. Your beautiful wisdom has guided me throughout my life ‘, commented a third.
‘Okay Michael: your strange and beautiful philosophies accompanied me throughout my adult life for 40 years. I hope the path you’re on continues to crumble, wherever you are. Your brilliance will be missed, Earthside,’ wrote one more.
It comes after The Age’s long-time contributor gave a blistering farewell speech after he was sacked from the publication in a “throat-cutting exercise” earlier this year.
Leunig’s 55-year career came to an end in September when the Melbourne-based publisher Patrick Elligett told subscribers that the cartoonist had “introduced his final editorial illustration.”
Leunig refused to remain silent and delivered a forceful farewell message to the newspaper, accusing its editors of censorship and calling it a “tasteless tabloid.”
He described his firing as a “throat-cutting exercise” and was offended that Elligett did not tell readers that it was his decision to end his career.
“There was no mention of the fact that he (Elligett) gave me the axe,” Leunig said. The Australian.
‘I expected it, since I have separated from The Age philosophically (and) culturally. I don’t really read it, I just scan it. It’s a sad story because I started there when it was a major newspaper.
“Now it’s almost embarrassing to say that I worked for The Age. It has become a tabloid newspaper in bad taste.
Elligett said his only comment in response was to “thank Michael Leunig for his contribution to The Age over many decades.”
Leunig’s 55-year career came to an end in September when The Age editor Patrick Elligett (pictured) told his subscribers that the cartoonist had “introduced his final editorial illustration”.
Leunig, who started working for the newspaper in 1969, said the relationship between him and the newspaper became strained during the Covid pandemic.
The newspaper was owned by Fairfax Media before being acquired by Nine Entertainment following a merger between the two companies in 2018.
The cartoonist made headlines when he shared an illustration that was rejected by then-editor Gay Alcorn because it was strongly critical of vaccine mandates.
Leunig’s cartoon, which never appeared in the newspaper, showed one of his typically frail, big-nosed figures in front of the silhouette of a tank with a syringe in place of the gun turret.
In the upper left corner, the 76-year-old copied the iconic ‘Tank Man’ image showing a Beijing protester standing in the path of a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
He posted the cartoon on his Instagram page with the word “mandate”, an act that eventually resulted in him being fired from The Age’s news pages and left to publish a single cartoon a week for the weekend section.
“I simply had to raise questions, as many people did, about the seriousness of the Covid measures and this was intolerable, these things remained unpublished without any explanation or discussion,” Leunig said.
‘It was like they sent you to Coventry, you don’t exist.
“It was almost a lonely situation, there was never any contact with anyone… They just left me on a rock.”
The cartoonist made national headlines when he shared a cartoon that was rejected by then-editor Gay Alcorn because it strongly criticized vaccine mandates (pictured).
Leunig said he had submitted numerous cartoons about former Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’ extreme lockdown measures during 2020.
But these, he claimed, were rejected for fear of upsetting The Age’s mostly left-leaning readers who favored closures.
Last week, Leunig wrote an article for his own website in which he accused The Age of censorship, claiming there was “a message conveyed to him from above not to mention Gaza”.
“He followed those instructions, but in a sense he was left in the dark with one hand tied behind his back,” Leunig wrote in the third person.
“It was obvious to him that the institution that most needed to be questioned, shaken and lampooned was the mainstream media, but of course this was off limits.”
He accused the modern cartoon industry of being too “clever, clean and sanctimonious” and claimed that cartoonists “do not have the support and encouragement of brave or adventurous editors.”
‘With some wonderful exceptions, traditional Australian cartoonists can no longer be so funny, energetic and mischievous; they are not free enough, they do not have as much ink on their hands as before, they are mostly overeducated, they do not end up in court accused of offensive publications as before, they also cry “After clever jokes and self-congratulations of dubious media awards and welcoming, they no longer receive letter bombs or the volume of hate mail as was normal in previous times,” he wrote.