Larry Pickering - Career

Career

Initially employed as a proofreader, Pickering was able to gain the attention of John Allan, the editor of The Canberra Times. Allan gave Pickering the opportunity to work for the paper as a political cartoonist, and Pickering's early work coincided with the Whitlam and Fraser governments. It was at this time his first book of cartoons "The Hansard Papers" written by Reuters Economic Services Canberra correspondent Michael Guy and illustrated by Larry was published and went to Number One on the Australian bestseller lists. Pickering was awarded two Walkley Awards with The Canberra Times for his work, one in 1971 and a second the following year in 1972. Pickering went on to win the award a further two times, in 1973 with The National Times, and in 1974 with The Sydney Morning Herald.

In 1976 Pickering moved to The Australian, where his "Jungle Series" was featured in the newspaper's weekend edition. He remained with The Australian for five years, before largely retiring from political cartooning in 1981 – although he continued to publish the "Pickering’s Playmates" calenders, and some of his work continued to appear in The Bulletin.

For the next thirty 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".

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