Petty Notions, Grand Designs

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A survey of the life and work of Australian political cartoonist and animator, Bruce Petty, from birth to mid-career (early 1976): In this piece, I focus on Petty’s early years, until the major seachange in his and Australia’s career marked by the events of 1975. While I deal with images in approximately chronological order and gather some information about his life, this is not primarily a biographical sketch.1 It is Petty’s engagement with public life and debate that I seek to outline, to describe his developing perspective on the issues of the 1960s and early 1970s.