Maybe cartoons and satire is simply a way of pointing out bits of information that we suspect someone has got wrong… I think that my professional life is basically finding niches and gaps.
– Bruce Petty

Love and art, politics and the economy, footy and music – Bruce Petty explores these themes and more in A Mad Century!, his latest exhibition of prints, films and sculpture on show at the National Archives until 24 March 2002.

Born in Melbourne in 1929, Bruce Petty is one of Australia’s most influential political satirists and cartoonists. His work has appeared in Punch, the New Yorker, the Bulletin, the Australian and the Daily Mirror. He is still a regular contributor to the The Age.

A Mad Century! presents a suite of etching and drypoint prints that provoke the viewer to contemplate the everyday alongside the madness of the social and political events of the past.

Petty’s works rumble gently to amplify their message, the more you look the more you see. His intricate, machine-like images, ever consuming and producing, present challenging and absorbing observations on a wide range of topics and events.

His exhibition includes works that touch on Federation, the monarchy, capitalism, communism, the moral dilemmas of war, globalisation and the economy, the Republic, Mabo, Wik, and the Olympics.

Augmenting the artworks is a fascinating range of papers, letters, recordings and photographs specially selected from the Archives collection that document some of the issues depicted so sharply in Petty’s works.