Jon Kudelka, the much-loved Australian political cartoonist, artist and illustrator, has died aged 53.
His wife Margaret broke the news on social media yesterday (9 February), writing, ‘our beloved, brilliant Jon Kudelka died peacefully in South Hobart on Sunday afternoon, surrounded by his family and friends’.
Vale Jon Kudelka – quick links
Jon Kudelka: deeply admired
‘Jon was deeply loved and admired by many, including fellow Tasmanians, the legions of fans of his inimitable art, countless newspaper readers over 30 years, and even by the politicians he relentlessly skewered in his award-winning cartoons (many of whom have his work on their walls). He loved his family, friends, making art in many forms, and firmly calling out political and anti-science bullshit with his typically dry wit and compassion,’ Margaret Kudelka’s announcement adds.
Kudelka, who won Walkley Awards for his cartoons in 2008 and 2018 – and who also famously boycotted the Walkey Awards in 2023 over their connection to the fossil fuel industry – was diagnosed with an inoperable brain cancer in early 2024.
Margaret Kudelka wrote that he ‘faced treatment for two years with positivity and hope, supported by his wife, Maggie, teenage children Kay and Oskar, sister Liesl, and his many friends’.
She added: ‘Jon believed in showing up fully for life and embracing humour even in the hardest of times. In the past two years, he was heard many times to say, ironically, “good times”.
‘Jon’s presence remains in the love he gave and the lives he touched. He will always be with us.’
Her statement concluded: ‘Funeral details to follow. In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations in Jon’s memory to The Bob Brown Foundation, Canteen Australia or The Menzies Institute for Medical Research.’
Who was Jon Kudelka?
Kudelka was born in Burnie in north-west Tasmania in 1972 and went on to study at the University of Tasmania, obtaining a Bachelor of Science. According to the ABC, he started drawing cartoons for Hobart’s The Mercury in 1993 and also drew cartoons for The Australian for two decades. He left The Australian in September 2019, but continued to publish cartoons in The Mercury until at least 2024, many of them against the proposed AFL stadium on Hobart’s Macquarie Point. More recently, he drew cartoons for The Saturday Paper.
As well as two Walkleys, Kudelka also won the 2008 Stanley Award for Best Editorial/Political Cartoonist (presented by the Australian Cartoonists Association) and the Kennedy Awards’ 2019 Vince O’Farrell Award for Outstanding Cartoon, and he was also declared the Museum of Australian Democracy’s Political Cartoonist of the Year twice, in 2010 and 2019.
Speaking with ArtsHub in 2019, Kudelka described his approach to drawing a daily editorial cartoon, saying: ‘The process for a daily cartoonist is that you start off early in the day and you read everything you can find and then you let it sit for a while and then hopefully something will jump out as your main topic for the day. Once you’ve nailed the topic it’s just a matter of making it as ridiculous as possible.’
In that same 2019 interview, conducted by George Dunford, Kudelka discussed his growing concerns around climate change, which would later fuel his 2023 boycott of the Walkley Awards over a sponsorship arrangement with fossil fuel company Ampol; that partnership ended in October 2024.
Speaking with ArtsHub about the boycott, Kudelka said: ‘Some people take the Walkeys very seriously. So I didn’t want to put pressure on anyone else to do the same, but the greenwashing conducted is obviously a big deal for these extractive companies.
‘They need to get permission to extract stuff, and they’re going to make a huge profit out of it. They don’t want to pay taxes and they don’t want to clean up the mess they leave behind – or pay for the mess … I don’t really want to pressure everyone else to take a stance. I don’t want to be accused of virtue signalling because I honestly don’t think it’s a virtue – I just think it’s something that should be done. I thought maybe just leading by example might be a way to give it a go.’
Despite stepping away from editorial cartooning, Kudelka remained creative, including writing and illustrating a number of books including Hobart, a collection of watercolour sketches of the city he called home.
His books, together with cartoons, prints and other images – including artworks and objects featuring his anti-tourism campaign slogan, ‘Tasmania is awful – never come here’ – were sold through The Kudelka Shop in Hobart’s Salamanca Place, which he established with his wife Margaret, who is also an artist.
Cartoonists pay tribute to Jon Kudelka
Despite his illness, Kudelka attended the Australian Cartoonist Association’s annual conference in October 2025, held in Hobart.
The ACA acknowledged Kudelka’s death this week, with a spokesperson writing: ‘We are all very sad to hear of the passing of one of our most remarkable cartoonists on Sunday afternoon, Jon Kudelka. We were very fortunate to visit Jon at his Kudelka Gallery in Hobart during the Stanleys weekend last October and, despite his health, he came along to the conference and talked shop. Our condolences and love to Margaret, Kay and Oscar, family and friends.’
David Blumenstein pays tribute
Melbourne-based cartoonist and graphic storyteller David Blumenstein tells ArtsHub: ‘I come from a slightly different stream of cartooning than Jon, but [even] before I met him I respected him for his unsparing newspaper work and for his entrepreneurial spirit and willingness to self-publish. Once I met him, I understood that he was a good guy who cared deeply, and I reckon he was genuinely confused as to why humans (usually politicians) would choose to be so awful they needed to be roasted by him.
‘I felt similarly when John Clarke passed [in 2024]; we’ve lost someone we needed and can’t replace.
‘He may not have felt his cartoons could bring down governments, but they did make Australia better, and so did he, with his activism, advocacy and just by being a good friend to people. I’m glad he retired from the cartooning treadmill when he did and spent time doing his own art and being with people he loved,’ Blumenstein says.
Cathy Wilcox pays tribute
Cartoonist Cathy Wilcox tells ArtsHub: ‘The death of Jon Kudelka is a terribly sad thing – not even a year after we lost our beloved cartoonists colleague, my friend John Shakespeare, also prematurely, also to a tumour … [Kudelka] certainly hit the ground running, and arrived on the cartooning scene at a time when there was a big field of gag cartoonists and plenty of money in newspapers to pay for them. We wanted to be funny for our newspaper audiences, but we really wanted to be respected by our cartooning peers.’
Wilcox says she and Kudelka initially socialised primarily at industry exhibitions and events, and later online, as part of a community of Australian cartoonists on Twitter (‘later via BlueSky when Twitter/X turned toxic’).
‘That turned out to be a great little community for political cartoonists and their followers. Jon and First Dog on the Moon (Andrew Marlton) would mock-bicker with each other and we could join in the parrying and shit-stirring. To be publicly insulted by Jon was a huge mark of recognition!’ she explains, adding, ‘It was also where Jon would sometimes vent to me about life, work, stuff.’
Of Kudelka’s work, Wilcox says: ‘His cartoons were brilliant, powerful and devastatingly funny. He was far smarter than any of us, and thoroughly unsentimental. His Rusted-On Bingo cartoon (which became a sought-after tea-towel) exposed the folly of political loyalty and our limited intellectual discourse.
‘Jon was brutally honest – abrasively so, as some would experience it – and he prided himself on his ability to argue, honed through having an older sister in the legal profession. I experienced arguments with him, always on big things, matters of principle, and it would sometimes take hindsight to realise we’d been arguing from a place of furious agreement. He was also able to say sorry if he was wrong.
‘His honesty meant that he didn’t put much value in trying to be liked (he criticised me that I cared too much about being liked) but the result was that people loved him for who he was,’ she continued.
‘He was deeply ethical and didn’t suffer fools. He also loved fiercely, as evidenced by the tightness of the bond with his family unit.
‘He chose to use the remainder of his time beyond his Glioblastoma diagnosis, rather than wallowing in the cesspit of politics, to make all kinds of joyful art that will live on long after him.
‘I extend my deepest condolences to his family, and I will miss my brilliant, funny, prickly, honest friend,’ Wilcox said.
Oslo Davis pays tribute
Melbourne illustrator and artist Oslo Davis added his own recollections of Kudelka, saying: ‘Jon had that cheeky look in his eye, like he knew how things worked and that he was on to you. This was especially useful when it came to skewering big business and politicians – with Jon there was nowhere for them to hide. Jon was also a free-spirited gag cartoonist who delighted in giddy absurdity. His best work (he had a ridiculously high strike rate) was when he mixed politics and nonsense, thus reminding us there’s very little that separates them.
‘I was regularly, pleasantly in awe of him. Jon was kind, funny and generous – the quintessential top bloke you wanted to be around,’ Davis tells ArtsHub.
Judy Horacek and Christopher Downs pay tribute
Cartoonist, artist, writer and illustrator Judy Horacek adds: ‘Jon Kudelka was an amazing cartoonist, perhaps the best of our generation. He skewered the people who needed to be skewered, and did so with great intelligence, a forensic eye and a sparkling originality. His cartoons were very often laugh-out-loud funny, which is a rare thing. And he made it look effortless. I am very sad that he is no longer in the world – that there will be no more Kudelka cartoons, and that I will never see him nor DM him again. Like everyone else, I was hoping he would manage to beat the unbeatable. My heart goes out to his family. Vale Jon, you will be very missed.’
Tasmanian cartoonist Christopher Downes, whose work regularly appears in The Mercury, also acknowledged Kudelka’s death, telling ArtsHub: ‘Jon was incredibly important to me in my career as a cartoonist. He got me started in The Mercury as a replacement for Graeme Dazeley when he retired. I’d often go down to his shop in Salamanca just to bounce ideas off him.
‘Jon had an amazing ability to make drawing simple cartoons look easy. Other cartoonists will know what I’m talking about. Every time I look at his deftly scrawled cartoons, I’m in awe of how relevant and immediate his humour was. He was quick but measured at the same time.
‘His cartoons felt like notes passed between friends at the back of the class … He was a legend and I’m gonna miss him so terribly,’ Downes concluded.
