Leunig's Retreat

Sun Herald

Sunday November 21, 2004

By Paul Connolly.

He is one of Australia's best-loved cartoonists but since September 11, Michael Leunig has worn his political heart on his sleeve. And copped ire and hate mail.

In a couple of weeks, when the withering, flyblown northerlies begin their summer sorties, the threat of bushfires will take on

a tangible presence around Michael Leunig's bush-lapped hobby farm, two hours from Melbourne. For now, though, life here seems more idyllic than in a Scandinavian shampoo commercial. Leunig's drawing in his cheery, sun-warmed studio; Helga, his wife, is planting dahlias around their beautifully restored home. In the verdant surrounds, amid the fat chooks, cute dogs, the vineyard and the olive trees, their tanned, dark-haired children - Felix, 9, and Minna, 12, - are at play. If a smiling man with a teapot on his head (and a duck in his wake) happened past, well, he wouldn't look out of place.

Yet, as tranquil as it seems, it's no escape from the world. Nor was it intended to be when Leunig and his family moved here seven years ago from Melbourne. Rather, says Leunig - whose odd voice has an unthreatening monotone, like one you'd use to wake a sleeping child - "it's a place that gives me an interesting perspective from which to look upon the news. It's not a cocoon. I'm still disturbed by recent events. In fact, I feel more sensitised by them."

Anyone who has followed Leunig's cartoons in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald over the past few years will surely agree. Best known for his whimsical, melancholic and spiritual work (captured sighs put down in pen and ink, Andrew Denton once said), Leunig, since September 11, has become increasingly dark and vitriolic, aiming fire at George Bush and John Howard. As Tony Heath wrote in

The Age's letters page in March, "Some of Leunig's cartoons are getting so toxic they should be by prescription only or in a sealed section."

Leunig, 59, is unapologetic. "I'm getting to an age where you get tired of biting your tongue," he says, stroking his chin, his fingers dirty with ink and soil. "At times I might seem lopsided, in bad taste, vitriolic but it's the human condition to be like that when you face atrocity. It doesn't always make you a reasonable, articulate man. It's a cartoonist's job to get emotional."

It's also the cartoonist's role, he continues, to challenge assumptions, highlight hypocrisy and to take a "humanist view". No one minds him being the devil's advocate in peacetime, he points out, so why should such a role during war somehow make him unpatriotic? "I was appalled by the cheer squad of columnists and others, those people in suits who sat on soft chairs and went to lunch at nice restaurants, who were cheering young men into war. I get angry about them as much as the politicians."

Leunig, incidentally, hates suits - the metaphorical and literal kind - as was demonstrated in 1997 when he was named one of Australia's Living National Treasures and invited to a black-tie ball. "But I didn't have a suit," he recalls. "So I rang them and asked, 'Can I come as I am? Because I didn't become who

I am from wearing suits and I haven't got one.' They said, 'Can't you hire one?' And I said, 'If it has to be like that, I don't want to come." And they said, 'Well, don't come then.' So I didn't go." He laughs richly.

While Leunig is widely adored, he also attracts his critics. Sydney Institute director Gerard Henderson, who has called Leunig "the intellectual guru of Down Under's leftist luvvies", says he is "amused" by the cartoonist. "He's just another alienated leftist who has a lot of skill but is so predictable," says Henderson, who doesn't believe Leunig has any understanding of modern politics. "I don't object to his humanist voice - it's his naivete and alienation that interest me. But if he wants to find God in middle age, that's fine."

Such criticism, says Leunig (whose new book is When I Talk To You: A Cartoonist Talks To God but who "isn't religious in a formalised way"), is expected, although he suggests his detractors are more willing to mock than debate. What's not expected, however, is the anonymous hate mail - letters he describes as "hostile and obscene". "When you get your children and your wife mentioned in a hateful, menacing way, it's disturbing. But when you stir up what lies beneath the human psyche, you get splashes all over you." The past few years, he says, his voice dropping away like ash from a cigarette, "have been discomforting."

That Leunig could attract such venom surely proves the saying that the pen is mightier than the sword. He exudes gentleness and although he's taller than expected, his body seems to have resisted hardening despite all he does about the place - the digging, pruning, lugging and welding that come with farm life. And then, beneath his extraordinary bonnet of hair, is a kindly if somewhat sad face.

Am I just projecting his work onto his appearance? Is he, I ask, a melancholic person? Leunig becomes animated: "Look at my beautiful home. I have

a little vineyard. I make wine. I grow flowers. I grow vegetables. We have chickens. I build things. I do paintings that are happy. I write poems that are funny and happy. I reckon I've got a terrifically good record of happiness, tenderness and joy in my work."

But that's not to say, he adds, that human sadness is not "profoundly rich and interesting". He's had plenty of his own: the breakdown of his first marriage 16 years ago (which left him with two sons, Gus, 30, and Sunny, 27, from whom, he says, "I get a lot of strength"), the recent suicide of a close friend and a hemorrhage on his left retina that is impairing his sight. "It's irreparable. All I can do is hope it doesn't get worse."

Melbourne architect Greg Burgess attests to his friend's ability to "speak of things that matter to the soul". With the cartoonist out in the bush, most of their connections these days are at arm's length but Leunig, he says, is a "wonderful" correspondent. "He holds strong opinions and he's not polite for politeness's sake," says Burgess. "He feels things deeply and he's not afraid to show that in his life and in his work."

Leunig was emotionally tuned in as one of five children in his family in suburban Footscray. His parents weren't artistic but they didn't curtail his creativity, allowing him a barefoot childhood where he wasn't pressured to achieve. Eventually, he landed a job at the now defunct Newsday newspaper, where, after struggling with more conventional political cartoons, he began drawing the offbeat characters, such as Mr Curly, that became his trademark. That job led him first to Nation Review (now also defunct), then The Age, at a time when his marriage was disintegrating. "It was a big turning point in my life."

At a time of "great unhappiness", he met Helga Salwe, who was then a photographer at The Age. Unsurprisingly, Leunig didn't use a conventional chat-up line. "I took an intuitive shine to her but she made no sign that she noticed me in any way. Then one day, in a period of loneliness, I wrote her a little note and left it on her work station and just expressed the simple desire to get to know her. She was completely touched." Can Helga recall what he said? "Yes, I can," she says with a smile and no intention to elaborate.

The couple have been married for 16 years, not least because they share similar philosophies. The acceptance Helga has for Leunig, the man, is mirrored by the locals. Perhaps this, as much as his long-standing desire to live among nature, is why he left the city. In some places, he says, fame has isolated him. "People can treat me with kid gloves or as some object, when I'm just craving to be cuddled."

It's why he loves being in the local volunteer fire brigade, a necessity when those hot winds start to blow. "I love jumping on the truck and being part of that," he says with a faraway look. "It doesn't matter to anyone there that I'm Leunig. It doesn't matter to them what my politics are. All that matters is that I'm reliable and that I'm there."

The 2005 Leunig calendar will be included free in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age on December 6.

© 2004 Sun Herald

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