Geoff Pryor b. 1944

  • Artist (Cartoonist / Illustrator)
Contemporary Canberra newspaper cartoonist. Pryor has worked as the political cartoonist on the Canberra Times since 1978, when he succeeded Larry Pickering in the role. He has been the recipient of both a Walkley and a Stanley Award.

cartoonist, grandson of the cartoonist Oswald Pryor and son of Lindsay Dixon Pryor, Professor of Botany at ANU, was born on 24 July 1944 in Canberra. He attended Canberra High School and ANU. His first published work was a short strip called Rastus in the ANU newspaper Woroni . In 1969 Geoff abandoned his degree and travelled to Canada, where he worked in TV and freelanced as an artist (self-taught). In 1974 he travelled in Europe then returned to Canberra in 1975 and resumed his studies at ANU, finally graduating with a BA in 1977 with a Political Science major. During his protracted undergraduate years he also contributed as a freelance to the Canberra Times . In February 1978 editor Ian Matthews officially appointed him full-time political cartoonist on the Canberra Times succeeding Larry Pickering . He was still in this role in 2002. He has also contributed to Adelaide newspapers, to the Bulletin (examples 1985) and the Sydney Morning Herald (c.1984). In the mid-1980s he was living at Narrabundah.

Pryor is primarily a political cartoonist, but he also draws social commentary. His cartoon “ There goes the neighbourhood!” first published in the Canberra Times in January 1983, is said to have marked a shift in perspective for Caucasian cartoons about Aboriginal people; it was used for the endpapers and title of Michael Dugan & Josef Scwarc’s There Goes the Neighbourhood: Australia’s Migrant Experience (Macmillan, 1984). He won a Walkley Award for the best newspaper cartoon of 1987 and a Stanley Award as best editorial/political cartoonist in 1993. His original cartoons, 'Mr Howard reaches out’ [on Pauline Hanson], 'Quasimodo Colston’, 'Kim rolls over’ and 'Cannibals and others’, published in the Canberra Times on 25 May 1997, 25 March 1997, 4 July 1997 and 26 April 1997, were exhibited in Bringing the House Down: 12 Months of Australian Political Humour (Canberra: National Museum of Australia/ Old Parliament House exhibition, 1997), cats 56, 66, 76, 94. A regular exhibitor, he also had three cartoons in the 2001 show and was in the annual exhibition in 2002, held at the NMA while a retrospective of his and Pickering’s cartoons was at Old Parliament House.

Under a serious self-portrait in the Australian (1-7 April 1999), Pryor stated:

“What I do is provide a source of critical opinion each day, giving a fair view of whatever the important developments are. I don’t come from a particular position, I try to be reasonably neutral. The PM comes in for a cartoon most days because I feel the government are the initiators – it’s not a Liberal/Labor thing, it’s a government thing. We’re paid to be sceptics and the government is a legitimate target.”

The panel says:

The artist: “The political cartoonist at the heart of the action. The Mort Drucker of Australia.”

The politician: “This guy is so good you’d have to call him Canberra’s best kept secret. I’ve seen colleagues almost wet themselves over his work.”

'Report Card’, Weekend Australian (Media) 1-7 April, 1999, 6 (six self portraits with a comment by each cartoonist himself [sic], an artist and a politician (anon).

The National Library of Australia has the original pencil, pen and ink drawing “...of course, you’ll still love me in the morning…”, done for the Canberra Times , on Keating’s Creative Nation cultural policy 1994 (#R11 351, see JK Archive). Also A Nation’s Destiny on the Republican Convention (R11482), a drawing of the Frazer cabinet entitled Nareen House (R11534) and Menzies greeting B.A. Santamaria in heaven (R11483).

Writers:
Kerr, Joan
Date written:
1996
Last updated:
2007