Peter Bromhead, the cartoonist who has died at the age of 93, would have appreciated the irony in the fact that his only newspaper obituary of any substance was written for the title he spent years competing against…and they put it behind their paywall.
Shayne Currie wrote a commendable tribute to Bromhead for the New Zealand Herald last week but it appeared only online. The one place I have seen it in print is the Daily Post in Rotorua, where he died. It republished Currie’s story yesterday. Apart from an eight-line brief in the Otago Daily Times and some online tributes, I could find no other reference to his death. By coincidence, the Sunday Star Times published an interview with him only days before he died.
It is sad, however, that the closing chapter was not more widely acknowledged. Although Bromhead’s personality caused issues in the course of his life, his body of work was such that it deserved widespread recognition in its own right.
The minimalist style he developed after joining the Auckland Star in 1972 became instantly recognisable. Those who saw his cartoons as hasty scribbles were mistaken. The style belied both keen observation and thoughtful rendition. The economy of line with which he captured the character of Robert Muldoon, for example, was masterful. It is, perhaps, to Bromhead’s enduring credit that Muldoon reputedly hated the caricature. Continue reading “Bromhead draws a line under his life”
