Pat Oliphant, a Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist, died Monday morning, his son Grant confirmed. He was 90.
According to Oliphant’s family, the celebrated cartoonist, known for skewering political corruption in the U.S. throughout his decades-long career, died at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico after suffering from a number of age-related illnesses.
Oliphant was a widely celebrated newspaper cartoonist, having famously taken aim at everyone from President Richard Nixon to President Donald Trump in his work. It is believed that Oliphant was one of the most syndicated editorial cartoonists in the U.S., with his daily political drawings appearing in more than 500 publications worldwide at one point.
“I think he was the best cartoonist of the last 100 years,” Edward Sorel, famed illustrator and friend of Oliphant’s, said in a statement to the Santa Fe New Mexican. “There hasn’t been anybody like him.”
Another friend of Oliphant’s, Hampton Sides, told the outlet that the cartoonist famously “made presidents quake in their boots.”
“And at the same time, you weren’t anybody unless you were skewered by Pat Oliphant,” he added. “He was just a brilliant satirist.”
Born in Adelaide, Australia in 1935, Oliphant kicked off his career in 1955 as the in-house cartoonist for The Advertiser. A decade later, Oliphant moved to the U.S., where he took up drawing for The Denver Post. It was there that Oliphant won a Pulitzer Prize.
Namely, Oliphant won the storied prize in the editorial cartooning category in 1967 for his work, “They Won’t Get Us To The Conference Table … Will They?,” which depicted Ho Chi Minh holding a dead Viet Cong soldier.
Ironically, Oliphant felt the drawing was the weakest from his bevy of work, resulting in him refusing to submit for future Pulitzer Prizes.
Though Oliphant later had a stint at The Washington Star, he notably worked independently at several points in his career.
Oliphant formally retired back in 2015. Though, he did come out of retirement to criticize Trump for a piece for The Nib, in which he drew the president as a member of Hitler Youth.
He is survived by his three children, Grant, Laura and Susanne Oliphant, two stepchildren, Pauline and Daniel Conway, brother John, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Leave a Reply