AUSTRALIAN cartoonist Bill Leak has died of a suspected heart attack.

The award-winning artist’s work was a fixture in Australian media for more than 30 years.

Mr Leak’s drawings were first publishedin The Bulletin in 1983. He was later employed by The Sydney Morning Herald before taking up the position for which he was best known, as editorial cartoonist for The Australian newspaper.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull posted a long tribute to the acclaimed cartoonist on Facebook starting with “I can’t believe that Bill Leak is dead”.

“Who had more life, more energy than him? So many more cartoons to draw, paintings to paint, politicians to satirise - so many more lives to enhance with his wit, his brilliance, his good friendship,” he said.

Mr Turnbull recalled meeting his mate Bill “more than 30 years ago” when the artist was drawing courtroom illustrations for a television network covering the Spycatcher trial.

“We were young, filled with mischief and confidence and delighted to shake up the British establishment. And right through his far too short life Bill was always a good-humoured sceptic of anybody and anything in authority; he was a superb artist,” he wrote.

“Yes, art is long and life is short, but it shouldn’t be this short.”

Editor of The Australian Paul Whittaker described Mr Leak as “a giant in his field of cartooning and portraiture and a towering figure for more than two decades”.

“We will miss him dreadfully and our hearts go out to his wife Goong, his stepdaughter Tasha and his sons Johannes and Jasper,” he said.

A statement from News Corp Australia’s executive chairman Michael Miller said the accomplished portrait painter and writer was “a man of extraordinary talent”.

“For more than two decades, Bill had been part of the News Corp family. I regard him as a friend and I know that many of you do also,” he said in the message to staff.

After listing the cartoonist’s many awards and achievements, Mr Miller said: “But most of all Bill was Bill: a man with a unique talent for understanding the most complex of issues and cutting through the smokescreens to focus Australians on the real issues no matter how confronting.

“He was brave and insightful, provocative, at times outrageous, irreverent but always clear and brilliant — and most of all passionate. He was one of Australia’s greatest champions of freedom of speech. However, what really set Bill apart and made him an industry legend was that he was incredibly funny. We will never forget the humour in his work and his wit and laughter as a person.”

Earlier, Mr Leak had come under fire over a cartoon published in 2015 showing Indian people trying to eat solar panels delivered by the United Nations.

In 2007 he was subject to a complaint from the Belgian creators of the character Tintin, whose image Mr Leak used to portray then-opposition leader Kevin Rudd.

Mr Leak was a fierce defender of free speech, and was constantly defending his controversial cartoons.

In a recent ABC interview he said: “Freedom of speech is what created our civil and free society. It is all about the exchange of ideas, about letting people express their views in the marketplace of ideas.”

The veteran cartoonist’s work has long been a source of controversy in Australian media circles. His satirical depictions have made headlines and stirred debate around the world.

A particularly controversial cartoon published last year depicting a drunk aboriginal man unable to remember his son’s name saw Mr Leak and The Australian investigated for breaching section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

He had only this week launched his latest book, Trigger Warning, a collection of Leak’s most popular cartoons published in The Australian last year.

Mr Leak used the launch party to attack political correctness, calling it “a poison that attacks the sense of humour” that “infects an awful lot of precious little snowflakes,” The Australian reported.

Throughout his career, Mr Leak won nine Walkley awards between 1987 and 2002, among other prestigious awards.

He has also been named as a finalist in the famed Archibald Prize a dozen times, and twice won the exhibition’s Packing Room prize.

The artist’s portraits of Bob Hawke and Bill Hayden hang in Parliament House in Canberra, and his portraits of Sir Donald Bradman, Dick Woolcott and Robert Hughes are in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, his website states.

Colleagues and friends have begun to pay tribute to the cartoonist sharing his daring illustrations on social media.

Politicians Jacqui Lambie was among those praising Leak, sharing a cartoon he had drawn of her depicted as a dog being led by former Palmer United Party leader Clive Palmer with the caption “goin’ feral”.

Bill Leak was always very kind to me when I was a little copy kid. Vale. #billleak — PatriciaKarvelas (@PatsKarvelas) March 10, 2017

Devastated to hear my friend & favourite political cartoonist, Bill Leak, has died today. #auspol 😥 pic.twitter.com/rQaxyP34Nq — Nyunggai W Mundine (@nyunggai) March 10, 2017