Signe Wilkinson (born July 25, 1950, in Wichita Falls, Texas) is an editorial cartoonist best known for her work at the Philadelphia Daily News. Her work is described as having a "unique style and famous irreverence."
Wilkinson is the first female cartoonist to win the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning (1992) and was once named "the Pennsylvania state vegetable substitute" by the former speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. In 2011, Wilkinson received a Visionary Woman Award from Moore College of Art & Design. She has also won four Overseas Press Club Awards and two Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards for Cartooning. She still publishes cartoons in Sunday editions of the Inquirer.
Biography
Early life and education
Wilkinson was born into a Quaker family in Wichita Falls, Texas, on July 25, 1950. She received a Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of Denver. She then attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; to support herself, she worked with graphic design at the Academy of Natural Sciences, and various regional newspapers hired her as a stringer.
Career
After Wilkinson received her BA in English, she began to pursue careers in journalism. She worked as a reporter, stringing for the Daily Post, the King of Prussia, and the West Chester Daily Local News. Once Wilkinson returned to reporting, she would draw the people she reported on.
Realizing her interest in both art and politics, Wilkinson attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts for a year. During her time there, she stringed for various Philadelphia and New York publications. In 1982, she earned a full-time job at the San Jose Mercury News, where she spent three and a half years working as a cartoonist. In 1992, she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. This strip focused on environmental issues. Family Tree concluded on August 27, 2011. For Organic Gardening magazine, Wilkinson created a comic strip entitled Shrubbery that centered on botanical and political topics.
Personal life
Wilkinson and her husband live in Pennsylvania with their two birds, five goldfish, and a dog named "Ginger."
Awards
- 1991: Clifford K. and James T. Berryman Award for Editorial Cartooning
- 1992: Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning
- 1996: Overseas Press Club Award- Thomas Nast Award
- One Nation, Under Surveillance: Cartoon Rants on Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Privacy (Cartoonist Group, 2005)
- Contributor to cartoon collection of Sex and Sensibility: Ten Women Examine the Lunacy of Modern Love in 200 Cartoons (Twelve, 2008)