THE official portrait of former Prime Minister Tony Abbott by Johannes Leak was unveiled this morning (November 30) at Parliament House.

Abbott was the 28th prime minister of Australia from 2013 to 2015 and his portrait joins the Historic Memorials Collection, which was founded by Prime Minister Andrew Fisher in 1911 and includes portraits of heads of state, governors-general, prime ministers, presidents and speakers.

Leak, the German-born son of cartoonist Bill Leak, is best-known as a cartoonist too, but is a painter trained at the Julian Ashton Art School.

His controversial August 2020 cartoon of Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in the 2020 election was deemed as offensive and racist by a number of commentators and fellow-cartoonists, but in February 2021, he was awarded a $40,000 contract from the Australian Department of Parliamentary Services to paint an official portrait of Abbott for Parliament’s Historic Memorials Collection.

It remains to be seen whether his portrait of the former PM will be equally controversial.