volume 1, number 1, 2006

About the cover artwork

Michael Leunig, A picture of innocence, 2006.

This work appeared in The Age, Melbourne, on Australia Day, 26 January 2006. 

Michael Leunig was an Australian cartoonist, writer, painter, philosopher and poet. His commentary on political, cultural and emotional life spaned more than fifty years and often explored the idea of an innocent and sacred personal world. The fragile ecosystem of human nature and its relationship to the wider natural world was a related and recurrent theme.

His newspaper work appeared regularly in the Melbourne Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. He described his approach as regressive, humorous, messy, mystical, primal and vaudevillian – producing work that is open to many interpretations and was widely adapted in education, music, theatre, psychotherapy and spiritual life.

Michael Leunig was declared an Australian Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia in 1999. He died on 19 December 2024 aged 79 years.

In the artist of all kinds one can detect an inherent dilemma which belongs to the co-existence of two trends; the urgent need to communicate and the still more urgent need not to be found. D.W. Winnicott

Reference

Leunig, M. (2018). Home | Michael Leunig. https://www.leunig.com.au/