William Papas

Papas died at Hotnarko Lake, British Columbia, on 19 June 2000, following a flying accident.

Some of his cartoons were chosen for the 1970 National Portrait Gallery exhibition "Drawn and Quartered: the world of the British newspaper cartoon 1720–1970", and examples of his work are held in the permanent collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Centre for the Study of Cartoons and Caricature at the University of Kent, the Vorres Museum (Athens) and the Old City Museum (Jerusalem).

He was divorced in 1969 and in 1970 married his second wife, Tessa Pares. He spent the next ten years in Greece, then moved to Geneva and in 1984 to Oregon, continuing to paint and illustrate. In Oregon he also ran his own art gallery and drew an evocative series of pen-and-ink and watercolour pictures of American cities, later published as Papas' America and Papas' Portland among others.

Papas was a commended runner up for the 1964, 1967, and 1968 Kate Greenaway Medals from the Library Association, recognising the year's best work of children's book illustration by a British subject. He garnered six commendations including one "for work in general" (unique to 1964) and five for particular 1967 and 1968 books published by Oxford University Press: The Church by Geoffrey Moorhouse; No Mules, A Letter from India, A Letter from Israel, and Taresh the Tea Planter, four that Papas both wrote and illustrated.

In 1959 he returned to Britain with his family, his wife Aroon McConnell and daughter Peta, their two sons Warren & Vollmer, settling in Kent and joining the staff of The Guardian. In 1963 he took over from David Low as political cartoonist. He also drew comic strips and produced pictorial reports, covering, for example, Cyprus in 1965 and the Six-Day War in 1967. Between 1964 and 1972 he also produced cartoons for the Sunday Times and Punch.

His first published cartoon appeared in the Cape Times in 1951, and his first illustrated book, Under the Table Cloth, was published in 1952. He later freelanced in Johannesburg as artist-cum-reporter, notably covering Nelson Mandela's treason trial in 1958.

William "Bill" Papas (15 July 1927 – 19 June 2000) was a political cartoonist and caricaturist, book author and illustrator, and watercolourist. In the 1960s and 1970s he worked for The Guardian, The Sunday Times and Punch. His work has won international acclaim and is included in many private and corporate collections around the world.