1. Desmond Robert "Bill" Leak was an Australian editorial cartoonist, caricaturist and portraitist.
19 Facts About Bill Leak
1. 2.
Bill Leak's cartoons were first published in 1983 in The Bulletin and after he drew for The Sydney Morning Herald until 1994, when he was recruited by News Limited to contribute to The Daily Telegraph-Mirror and later to The Australian.
3.
Bill Leak entered paintings into the Archibald on several occasions, having won the People's Choice Award in 1994 for his portrait of Malcolm Turnbull and the Packing Room Prize twice, in 1997 and 2000 for his portraits of Tex Perkins and Sir Les Patterson respectively.
4.
Desmond Robert Bill Leak was born in Adelaide on 9 January 1956, the second of three children of Doreen and Reg Bill Leak in what was reportedly a "blue-collar Labor family".
5.
Bill Leak was brought up in Condobolin from his birth until 1967, when the family moved to Beacon Hill.
6.
Bill Leak attended Beacon Hill High School and Forest High School, forced to leave the former for the latter after drawing caricatures of his teachers.
7.
Bill Leak began drawing cartoons professionally in 1983, first for The Bulletin and then for The Sydney Morning Herald.
8.
Bill Leak resigned from The Sydney Morning Herald to take up a role at The Daily Telegraph-Mirror, a News Limited newspaper, in 1994.
9.
The complaint was resolved when Bill Leak agreed not to profit from sales of the cartoons.
10.
Western Australian Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan and academic Jeremy Sammut defended Bill Leak's 2016 cartoon, saying it was an appropriate portrayal of some communities and families.
11.
Bill Leak said the cartoon was not racist, reflecting that if the characters he had drawn were white, he would not have been accused of racially stereotyping all white parents as bad parents.
12.
On 21 September 2016, during a nationwide debate about legalising same-sex marriage, The Australian published a Bill Leak cartoon depicting a club-carrying, goose-stepping platoon, wearing rainbow-coloured NAZI SS uniforms, captioned "Waffen-SSM", which provoked significant controversy.
13.
Comedian Ben McLeay criticized Bill Leak's cartoon, writing that it was harmful and morally repugnant.
14.
In 1984, Bill Leak first entered the Archibald Prize, an annual portraiture competition administered by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
15.
Bill Leak entered portraits of Malcolm Turnbull in 1994, Graham Richardson in 1995, Tex Perkins in 1997, Gough Whitlam in 1998, Sir Les Patterson in 2000 and Robert Hughes in 2001.
16.
Bill Leak won the Packing Room Prize twice and won the People's Choice Award for his portrait of Malcolm Turnbull.
17.
Bill Leak was a subject for People's Choice Award winners Esther Erlich and Jo Palaitis.
18.
On 18 October 2008, Bill Leak sustained serious head injuries from falling off a balcony while trying to feed African grey parrots and gang-gang cockatoos.
19.
On 10 March 2017, Bill Leak died in hospital following a suspected heart attack.