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

His newspaper work appeared regularly in the Melbourne Age and the Sydney Morning Herald until 2024. He described his approach as regressive, humorous, messy, mystical, primal and vaudevillian – producing work open to many interpretations and widely adapted in education, music, theatre, psychotherapy and spiritual life.

“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