cartoonist and illustrator, was born in Melbourne, sister of cartoonist Michael Leunig . She studied art in the late 1960s, then married Leon Norster (b.1950) and had two children. She completed her studies in 1975. That year Joyce Nicholson’s What Society Does To Girls (Pitman, Carlton, Vic., 1975) was published with cartoons by Leunig (two are illustrated in “Good morning boys and girls”: A Women’s Education Catalogue ed. Daniela Torsh, Greenhouse, Carlton, Vic., 1976, pp.60, 177). She has since been widely published in newspapers and magazines, including Nation Review , Matilda (c.1985), the Age , Harper’s Bazaar and Cleo . Her cartoon of a short determined woman trying to break into a too solid line of Union Reps was published in Labor Star of March 1988 (ill. Senyard, p.119). Normally, however, she draws 'the terrors of the domestic front’ – the subject of all four of her cartoon anthologies: There’s No Place Like Home (1st) 1982, A Piece of Cake 1986 (2nd), One Big Happy Family , 1992 (3rd), Black and White and Grey , 1993 (4th), all published by Penguin Books, Ringwood (Vic.). Most are in colour except the fourth. Merren Ricketsen curated an exhibition of her work for Caulfield Art Centre in 1988. An exhibition of beautifully coloured sinister cartoons (nfs) was in the Cube at the Contemporary Art Space, Gorman House, Canberra, in 1999.

Writers:
Kerr, Joan
Joseph Norster
Date written:
1996
Last updated:
2012