Pickering, Larry B.1942

Larry Pickering original cartoon artwork.

As a proofreader at the the Canberra Times, Larry Pickering was fortunate to come to the attention of John Allan, the editor of the paper, who made Pickering the paper’s political cartoonist. His early work coincided with the Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser governments. It was at this time his first book of cartoons "The Hansard Papers" was published and went top of the Australian bestseller lists. Pickering was awarded two Walkley Awards with the Canberra Times for his work between 1971-2. Pickering went on to win the award on two further occassions, in 1973 with the National Times, and in 1974 with the Sydney Morning Herald. In 1976 Pickering moved to The Australian and remained there for 5 years, before largely retiring from political cartooning in 1981. For the next 30 years Pickering focused on other pursuits, such as training racehorses and growing tomatoes, but in 2011 he returned to political cartooning. Publishing his cartoons online, Pickering became involved in political commentary through his blog, The Pickering Post, where he ran a series of posts in 2012 attacking Prime Minister Julia Gillard over the AWU affair. Gillard responded by referring to the website as "vile and sexist", and described Pickering as a misogynist.