Overview
- His family confirmed that Pat Oliphant died at age 90 at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico after suffering from age-related illnesses.
- Born in Adelaide in 1935, Oliphant moved to the United States in 1964, worked at The Denver Post and The Washington Star, and won the 1967 Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning.
- He became one of the most widely syndicated cartoonists, with his daily drawings running in hundreds of publications and a signature tiny penguin device that other artists often imitated.
- Oliphant’s work repeatedly drew formal complaints from groups including the Catholic League, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Asian American Journalists Association, and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee for cartoons they called offensive or racist, yet constitutional free-speech protections limited legal challenges to his satire.
- His papers are held by institutions such as the University of Virginia and the Smithsonian and his influence endures in debates over the reach of satirical opinion, while he is survived by three children, two stepchildren, a brother, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.