Michael Leunig: Vale a poet of pointed whimsy

Michael Leunig, the gentle Melbourne cartoonist, a beautiful soul, a gentleman with soft grey curls who understood, in his bones, that life is short, and often disappointing, has died.

Michael Leunig died peacefully at home on December 19.

Dear Mr Curly,

Do you have your duck nearby?

You might need him today because your creator, Michael Leunig, the gentle Melbourne cartoonist, has died.

You will be sad, of course, because he was such a beautiful soul, a gentleman with soft grey curls who understood, in his bones, that life for human beings is short, and often disappointing, and yet ...

And yet, there are ducks, and there are faithful dogs, and there are birds, singing in the trees.

He drew them all, and in the process gave people hope of a ­better, kinder world.

Leunig’s death at the age of 79 was announced on his Instagram page, thus:

“The pen has run dry, its ink no longer flowing.

“Mr Curly and his ducks will remain etched in our hearts, cherished and eternally.

“Michael Leunig passed away peacefully today.”

He was surrounded by his children, loved ones, and sunflowers, and by music: Bach and Beethoven.

For an obituary, we can turn to the biography he wrote for his website: Michael Leunig was born in East Melbourne in June 1945, a slaughterman’s son and second eldest of five children. He was educated at Footscray North Primary School and Maribyrnong High School, plus at various factory gates, street corners, kitchen tables, paddocks, rubbish tips, quarries, loopholes, puddles and abattoirs in Melbourne’s industrial western suburbs.”

Leunig cited early influences as The Book of Common Prayer, JD Salinger, Bruce Petty and The Beatles.

He was alarmed, at age 20, to learn he had been chosen to serve as a soldier in Vietnam, but he was totally deaf in one ear and rejected by the army.

He became a factory labourer and meatworker instead.

The Penguin Leunig, his first book of collected cartoons, was published in 1974. He had drawn his first cartoons for The Age even earlier, in 1969.

Over time, his designs – Mr Curly, with his big round nose; the spotty tea pot, the happy dogs – would appear on tea towels, and mugs, and in galleries.

He wrote for symphony orchestras, and for singers.

His style was often described as whimsical, but he could be sharp, too. His cartoon about the thoughts of a baby in a childcare centre (the baby was swaddled, alone, and missing its mum, thinking: “She is my mother and I think the WORLD of her … The failure is mine … I hate myself”) caused many working parents to have a conniption.

He was opposed to compulsory vaccination, which saw him on the outer during Covid in Victoria, where resistance was basically verboten.

He kept faith by living close to the land, although he was also a deeply Melbourne person.

He loved coffee, and walking in city parks.

He loved Christmas, too: he used to let The Age use his ­designs on the free wrapping paper they gave away every year, until they decided they didn’t want it anymore.

He used to do a calendar for them, too.

Artist Michael Leunig on his property at Boho in Victoria.

After 55 years, they decided this past September they were completely done with him.

They said it was cost-cutting. He said it was a “throat-cutting exercise” but he remained philosophical.

“I’d had a growing expectation that I would be disposed of by the big shots at Nine Entertainment and in the fateful phone conversation with the editor, when he said he was sorry, I told him in all honesty that everything was OK and that I actually felt exhilarated. Suddenly, there at last after all those years in newspapers, in one bound I was free.”

On his website, he said he had a simple plan for retirement: “To plant trees, to paint pictures, to talk to the birds and kangaroos … to listen to music and birdsong, to grow, to wonder, to die… and, of course, to be a funny old grandfather in the garden.”

That was three months ago.

He didn’t really have a bucket list, but Mr Curly did. It featured a bucket and spade for holidays by the sea; a bucket for watering plants; a bucket for kitchen scraps, and so on. Simple things, to ease the sorrow of life and now, a poet’s death.

Leunig died on December 19.