“Stay away from excellence at all costs; it stinks.”

Australian cartoonist, poet and artist

Michael Leunig, known professionally as Leunig, was an Australian cartoonist, poet, and artist. He became widely known for his work in Melbourne’s The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. Leunig’s work brought together cartooning, poetry, and visual art, and those newspaper contributions made him familiar to a broad Australian readership. His public voice was shaped by that blend of image and language, which is why his name remains closely associated with those papers and with his distinctive artistic output.