Judy Horacek (born 12 November 1961) is an Australian cartoonist, artist, writer and children's book creator. She is best known for her award winning children's picture book Where is the Green Sheep? with Mem Fox, and her cartoons all over the world. She has been a regular cartoonist for newspapers including The Age newspaper, The Canberra Times, The Australian or The Australia Institute Newsletter. Horacek's latest book is Now or Never (2020), her tenth cartoon collection.

In 2005, a selection of her work was acquired by the National Library of Australia for its collection. She said at the time that "I really like being recognised for having done work that is part of the social discourse. And it's always nice to see cartoons get another lease on life – now they represent a particular time and context and become part of the portrait of who we [Australians] are".^[1]

Horacek graduated with a BA from the University of Melbourne in 1991, majoring in Fine Arts and English. She then studied for a Diploma in Museum Studies at Victoria University. In 2007, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Visual) in Printmedia and Drawing from Australian National University.

She lives in Melbourne.

Horacek started her career as a writer, and was a member of a community writing group in North Melbourne.^[2] Words are an important part of her cartoons, and sometimes dominate the pictures.^[2] Her stories have appeared in a number of anthologies.

After collaborating on a children's picture book with Mem Fox, she began to write and illustrate her own children's books, something she had always wanted to do, in addition to continuing to work with Mem Fox.

"My life has been a quest to find new and better place to stick cartoons", Horacek has said.^[3] Accordingly, her cartoons can be found in newspapers and magazines, online, on various merchandise items and as limited edition prints.^[3] Her cartoons have been described as whimsical and quirky. As she says, "I take every day situations and make them strange"^[4]

It was her interest in feminism which "drove Horacek's early work and established her reputation as a cartoonist".^[2] Since then, in addition to an ongoing interest in women's issues, her cartoons have covered a wide range of social and political issues such as the environment, climate change, the Australian Republican Movement, immigration, indigenous issues and FlyBuys. Cartoonist Peter Nicholson describes her work as follows:

For most of her professional life her cartoons have been more on the theme of people's everyday lives and worries. When this is your subject matter you start in more of a vacuum. You need a powerful imagination, a great sense of humour, a real understanding of the human condition and you must have something to say ... there is an advantage to this type of cartoon. It has lasting value.^[5]

Horacek's first commissioned work for The Age newspaper was published on International Women's Day 1995, next to the obituary of Senator Olive Zakharov. This was her cartoon, Woman with Altitude, a work which has since appeared on fridge magnets greeting cards, tea-towels and T-shirts.^[6] In 2007, she said that "The woman with altitude ... represents who we could be".^[4] At various times she has had regular spots in such newspapers and magazines as The Age, The Weekend Australian Magazine, The Canberra Times, the Australian Book Review, the Australia Institute newsletter and currently The Monthly.

She illustrated Mem Fox's non-fiction book, Reading Magic, and in 2004 she illustrated her first children's book, Mem Fox's Where Is the Green Sheep?.^[7] It was shortlisted for several book awards, and in 2005 won the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year – Early Childhood Award and the 2005 Speech Pathology Australia Award. She has since started writing her own children's books, the first being The Story of GROWL (2007), followed by "These are My Hands" (2008), "These are My Feet" (2009) and "Yellow is my favourite colour".

Where is the Green Sheep? was published both in Australia and the USA in 2004 and has been translated into Spanish, Korean, simple Chinese, Hebrew, Krzg and two Australian Indigenous languages, Pitjantjatjara and Kriol.

In 2024 Penguin Random House released a special edition of Where is the Green Sheep? with a gold foil cover. Additionally, the Royal Australian Mint produced a commemorative 20 cent coin with a Horacek illustration derived from the original book.

• Where Is the Green Sheep?, with Mem Fox (2004, ISBN 0-15-204907-X and ISBN 0-670-04149-1)
• The Story of GROWL (2007, ISBN 978-0-670-07045-9)
• These are My Feet (2007, ISBN 978-0-14-350224-1)
• These are My Hands (2008, ISBN 9780143502593)
• Yellow is my favourite colour (2010, ISBN 9780143504283)
• Good Night, Sleep Tight, Mem Fox, Illustrated by Judy Horacek (2012, ISBN 978-1-74283-257-9)
• Yellow is my colour star (2014, ISBN 9781743622728)
• This & That with Mem Fox (2015, ISBN 9781743622537)
• Ducks Away! with Mem Fox (2016, ISBN 9781760158514)
• Bonnie and Ben Rhyme Again with Mem Fox (2018, ISBN 9781742996240)
• Hey Diddle Diddle (2024, ISBN 9781760658632)
• Meerkat Mayhem with Mem Fox (2024, ISBN 9780143777687)

• Life on the Edge, Introduced by Dale Spender (1992, ISBN 1-875559-11-6 and 2003, ISBN 1-876756-41-1)
• Unrequited Love: Nos. 1–100 (1994, ISBN 0-86914-349-2)
• Lost in Space (1997, ISBN 9781864484755)
• Woman with Altitude (1997, ISBN 1-86447-101-8 and 1998, ISBN 0-7336-1029-3)
• If the fruit fits (1999, ISBN 0-7336-1051-X)
• I am woman, hear me draw / cartoons from the pen of Judy Horacek (2003, ISBN 1-876944-10-2)
• Make Cakes Not War, (2007, ISBN 9780740769634)
• If you can't stand the heat (2010, ISBN 9781921640025)
• Random Life (2017, ISBN 9780987612908)
• Now or Never (2020, ISBN 9780987612946)

Horacek has regularly shown her prints and watercolour painting in commercial galleries in solo and group exhibitions.

She has had retrospectives at the National Gallery of Victoria, Laughter, the Universe and Everything,^[8] which toured regional Victoria, and at the National Museum of Australia, the exhibition I am woman hear me draw^[9] in 2002. This exhibition toured throughout Australia.

• Mary Jane: living through anorexia and bulimia nervosa / Sancia Robinson with Foong Ling Kong and cartoons by Judy Horacek (1996, ISBN 0-09-183266-7)
• The women's power pocket book / Joan Kirner and Moira Rayner with illustrations by Judy Horacek (2000, ISBN 0-14-029540-2)
• Reading Magic: how your child can learn to read before school and other important things / Mem Fox with illustrations by Judy Horacek (2001, ISBN 0-330-36282-8, ISBN 0-15-601076-3, ISBN 0-15-100624-5; 2004, ISBN 0-330-42140-9 and 2005, ISBN 0-330-42222-7)
• The Night Before Mother's Day, Doug MacLeod, Illustrated by Judy Horacek (2012, ISBN 9781742379401)

Citations

• Beaver Galleries (2022) "Judy Horacek" in Solo Exhibitions (page 1)
• Nicholson, Peter (1999) "Introduction to Judy Horacek" in ""If the fruit fits"", Hodder Headline (page x)
• Favelle, Kathryn (2005) "A new lease on life" in National Library of Australia News, XV (12), September 2005, pp. 7–10
• Horacek, Judith (2007). Interviewed by Philip Williams, on Stateline Canberra, 2007-04-20 Accessed: 2007-09-20
• Horacek, Judith, artist and cartoonist (1998). Interviewed by Ann Turner
• Judith Maria Horacek (1961–) (2003) Accessed: 2007-09-20

• Official website
• Judy Horacek collection of cartoons – held and digitised by the National Library of Australia
• Portrait of Judy Horacek, cartoonist, by Virginia Wallace-Crabbe
• Judy Horacek at Library of Congress, with 14 library catalogue records
• https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/judy-horacek-20160212-gms7ju.html
• https://www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au/Public/About-Us/News-media-campaigns/Campaigns/Book-of-the-Year-2024/previous-winners.aspx
• coin#:~:text=coin%20in%20card%20is%20%2417.50,am%20Thursday%2015%20August%202024 https://www.ramint.gov.au/publications/where-green-sheep-its-on coin#:~:text=coin%20in%20card%20is%20%2417.50,am%20Thursday%2015%20August%202024. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help); Missing or empty |title= (help)
• https://www.penguin.com.au/news/4530-where-is-the-green-sheep-20th-anniversary--collectors-edition