Jon Kudelka, the award-winning Australian political cartoonist, has died at the age of 53. His wife, Margaret Kudelka, announced the news in a statement on Monday, saying he died peacefully in South Hobart on Sunday afternoon surrounded by family and friends.
Kudelka's work appeared regularly in the Saturday Paper and the Hobart Mercury, where he began as a cartoonist in 1993. Born in Burnie, Tasmania in 1972, he sold his first cartoon at age nine and went on to draw political cartoons for more than 30 years, with some 10,000 published.
He won Walkley awards for best cartoon in 2008 and 2018, as well as Kennedy, Stanley and News awards. He was named the Museum of Australian Democracy's political cartoonist of the year in 2010 and 2019. His 2018 Walkley-winning image, 'From the Heart', depicted Uluru as an upturned middle finger, capturing the response to the government's dismissal of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
After being diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour in 2024, Kudelka wrote an article for the Saturday Paper titled 'Lessons from political cartooning', reflecting on the profession. His wife noted that he believed in 'showing up fully for life and embracing humour even in the hardest of times'.
