Tony Auth was born in 1942 in Akron, Ohio.  He was bedridden for eighteen months at the age of five.  It was during this period that he began drawing, inspired by comic strips, children’s books and radio dramas.

At the age of nine, Tony moved with his family to Los Angeles.   Tony attended UCLA, earning a bachelor’s degree in biological illustration in 1965.  Upon graduation he became a medical illustrator at Rancho Los Amigos Hospital, a large teaching hospital associated with the University of Southern California.

While working as a medical illustrator, Auth began doing political cartoons. Initially he did one a week for a weekly alternative newspaper, and then, after being encouraged by Paul Conrad at the Los Angeles Times, three a week for the UCLA Daily Bruin.

Six years later, in 1971, Auth was hired as staff editorial cartoonist by The Philadelphia Inquirer, where he worked for 41 years. He decided to broaden his range of commentary, and is now the first Digital Artist in Residence at WHYY’s NewsWorks.org.q

Over the course of his career, Auth has won many awards, including five Overseas Press Club Awards, the Sigma Delta Chi award for distinguished service in journalism, the Thomas Nast Prize, the Herblock Prize, and the Pulitzer Prize.

Tony Auth has also published two collections of his political cartoons, and has illustrated eleven children’s books.

Tony is married to Eliza Drake Auth, a realist landscape and portrait painter.  They have two grown children, and live in Wynnewood, PA.