Tony Rafty

Rafty was married to Shirley Morey for 66 years, the daughter of the New South Wales Labor politician Tom Morey. Shirley died in 2012. They had five children.

On 12 October 2005, Rafty celebrated his 90th birthday. He died on 9 October 2015, in an Eastern Suburbs hospital in Sydney, NSW from complications of pneumonia, three days short of his 100th birthday.

In 1985, Rafty was awarded the Gold Cross of Mount Athos, one of Greece's highest honours, and in 1991 he was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for services to the media. Sir William Dargie, an Australian artist, eight-time winner of the Archibald Prize, and war artist with Rafty in World War II commented: “Tony Rafty is simply splendid. He not only brings an intellectual quality to his work, but he does it so well within a social context that he creates subjects which have a life of their own.”

Rafty caricatured politicians, sportspeople, and entertainers. He sketched sportsmen and women at every Olympic Games from 1948 (in London) to 1996 (in Atlanta). His work has been exhibited worldwide and over 15,000 of his caricatures have been featured in newspapers and magazines. In 1981 Rafty became the world's first caricaturist to have subjects appear on national stamps, with caricatures of sportsmen Victor Trumper [1], Walter Lindrum [2], Sir Norman Brookes [3] and Darby Munro [4] appearing on stamps issued by Australia Post. He also provided courtroom sketches for news bulletins on the Seven Network.

Tony Rafty OAM (born Anthony Raftopoulos; 12 October 1915 – 9 October 2015) was a Greek-Australian artist. He specialised in drawing caricatures.