CARTOON CONNECTION
LARRY PICKERING TRIBUTE
POLITICAL and provocative cartoons produced by the mind and pen of Gold Coast figure Larry Pickering are being remembered as “groundbreaking’’.
Pickering died aged 76 on Monday, surrounded by family following a long battle with cancer.
The four-time Walkley Award winner was highly controversial in his final years for right-wing views and attacks on former prime minister Julia Gillard.
But the legacy of his political cartooning during his heyday of the 1970s and early 1980s, when he lampooned figures from the Whitlam and Fraser governments, is being hailed as highly influential.
Fellow Walkley Awardwinning artist and close friend Paul Zanetti yesterday praised Mr Pickering’s work, which was featured in the The National Times, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian.
“Larry loathed Gough Whitlam and the feeling was mutual but he was one of the few cartoonists who captured the character of the man and they became a hit,” he said.
“These cartoons became the way the public perceived the politicians and Larry was unique because he was such a cheeky larrikin.
“He was in his 30s but he had such insight into their personalities. Despite this, Larry was actually mates with a lot of them including (Bob) Hawke, (Malcolm) Fraser, Ian Sinclair and the other high-flyers of the day.”
Pickering, a father of 11, published three books of his cartoons in the 1970s and 80s before he retired from political work in 1981.
He later grew tomatoes and was involved in racehorses before returning to cartooning in 2011 when he took on Ms Gillard with cartoons she later branded as “vile and sexist”.
Gold Coast Bulletin cartoonist Craig Mann said Pickering’s famous calendars raised plenty of eyebrows, with drawings stripping away all pretensions as they depicted political figures and national identities of the day in the nude.
“He pushed the boundaries and appealed to the larrikin readers across Australia with those calendars,” he said.
Larry Pickering was diagnosed with cancer in 2016 but continued to draw until the last weeks of his life, saying: “I wouldn’t stop drawing what I want to draw or writing what I want.”