Bill Leak

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Bill Leak (born Desmond Robert Leak, now living in the central coast [1] 1956) is an Australian , cartoonist and painter, primarily of portraits. He is the daily editorial cartoonist on The Australian newspaper. He has won the Walkley Awards nine times.[2]

Leak has entered the Archibald Prize at least 13 times, and was hung 11 times. These included portraits of Donald Bradman in 1989, Malcolm Turnbull in 1994, Graham Richardson in 1995, Tex Perkins in 1997, Gough Whitlam in 1998, Sir Les Patterson in 2000 and Robert Hughes in 2001. He won the Packing Room Prize twice (for Tex Perkins and Sir Les Patterson) and also won the People's Choice Award for Malcolm Turnbull. In addition two paintings of him by other artists have also won the People's Choice Award: a painting by Josonia Palaitis in 1995, and one by Esther Erlich in 2000. He "is widely regarded by good judges as the best painter never to have won the Archibald prize, an omission many of them regard as one of the greatest travesties of Australian art".[2]

He was interviewed in the 2005 Peter Berner documentary about the Archibald Prize called Loaded Brush.

In 2007 he ran into trouble by portraying the then leader of the opposition Kevin Rudd as Tintin (accompanied by Snowy).[3] This was resolved by Leak promising to not profit from any sales of cartoons from this series.[4]

On 18 October 2008 he sustained serious head injuries in a fall[5] and, while his outlook was initially poor, he recovered.[2]

Leak's TV series, Face Painting, in which he paints portraits of people who have died, went to air on the ABC in November 2008.[2] Portraits painted for this show include Australian actor June Salter, musician Bon Scott and Aboriginal activist Charles Perkins.

A cartoon of his, commenting on the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, published in The Australian in December 2015, generated controversy over its allegedly racist content.[6]

References

  1. 1001 Australians You Should Know, Toby Creswell, Samantha Trenoweth
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Coombs, Roger (2009) "Bill Leak ode to the fallen", The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 November 2008
  3. Blistering Barnacles! Tintin 'parody' threat, The Daily Telegraph, 2 June 2007
  4. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. Cartoonist Bill Leak seriously injured in balcony fall, ABC News (Australia), Oct. 19, 2008
  6. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

Awards
Preceded by People's Choice Award
1993/94
for Malcolm Turnbull
Succeeded by
Josonia Palaitis
Awards
Preceded by Packing Room Prize
1997
for Tex Perkins
Succeeded by
Kerrie Lester
Awards
Preceded by Packing Room Prize
2000
for Are you with me? - (Sir Les Patterson)
Succeeded by
Paul Newton