Max du pain biography sample

I didn’t want to begin with a death but found no way around it. For some reason I am not one of those who can write well on the living. The Australian modernist photographer Olive Cotton, who is my subject, died in but it wasn’t until the death of her husband, Ross McInerney, seven years later that I felt able to start writing her biography. I had been preparing myself as best I could, being careful not to take any liberties with biographical material I had been given or had already gathered. Ross’s death was not unexpected (he was a lifelong smoker who developed lung cancer at the age of ninety-one) but I was shocked by the strength and immediacy of its impact on my biographical project. It was electrifying. All of a sudden the key had been turned, the door opened and in I went to a space that previously did not—could not—exist. Janet Frame explains this transformative experience best in her autobiography The Envoy from Mirror City when she says, ‘writing of the dead is different for the dead have surrendered their story’. And so the day after Ross’s burial in a bush-circled cemetery in country New South Wales, I assumed a new role—as a storyteller, as Olive Cotton’s biographer.

The space that I have entered into—of story, of biography—is an imagined space, of course. But what became clear after Ross’s death was that if I were to inhabit it successfully, some real life redecorating was required. My preferred place to write is at home in a room I call my ‘workroom’, which was once our boys’ shared bedroom but is now mine alone. When they moved downstairs to their own separate rooms I painted its white walls yellow. At that time I wanted a warm, vibrant space in which I could write. It served me well for years but I could not imagine writing about Olive and her photographs there. It was way too active. And so I repainted it—blue. A very light, quiet blue.

I tell you this because I want to identify what I see as

‘Max Dupain’s dilemmas’, Australian Book Review, November , no.

‘Steeped in the now: Maree Clarke’s photography’ in Myles Russell-Cook, ed., Maree Clarke: Ancestral Memories, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

‘Australian Impressionism and Photography’ in Anne Gray and Angela Hesson, eds., She-oak and Sunlight, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

‘Energised: Australian women’s photography of the s’, in She Persists: Perspectives on Women in Art & Design, National Gallery of Victoria

‘A Hidden Legacy: Margaret Michaelis’s Photography’ in Rebecca Hawcroft, The Other Moderns: Sydney’s Forgotten European Design Legacy, NewSouth Publishing

‘Unsettling: Photographs by Anne Ferran and Sue Ford’, in Marsha Meskimmon and Marion Arnold (eds.) Home/Land: Women, Citizens, Photographies, Liverpool University Press

‘Aids to survival’ in Lee Kinsella, Mirian Stannage: Time Framed, UWA Publishing, Perth

‘Olive Cotton at Spring Forest’, Australian Book Review, July , no. , pp

‘Photography in ’ in Michelle Hetherington, ed., Glorious Days: Australia , National Museum of Australia, pp

‘The space of biography: writing on Olive Cotton’, Meanjin, Vol. 71, No. 3, Spring

‘Death and digital photography’ in Cultural Studies Review, vol, no.1, March  (peer reviewed)

‘Other histories: photography and Australia’, Journal of Art Historiography, guest editor Jaynie Anderson, no.4, June (peer reviewed)

‘Olive Cotton and Sea’s awakening’, Journal of Australian Studies, vol, no. 4, December, pp (peer reviewed)

‘Photography and the Ballets Russes: An Australian Perspective’ in Mark Carroll, (ed.), The Ballets Russes in Australia and Beyond. Adelaide: Wakefield Press, pp

‘Sue Ford’s History’, Art Journal of the National Gallery of Victoria, no, pp

‘Photography and the Ballets Russes: An Australian Perspective’ in Mark Carroll, (ed.), Art at the Frontier. Adelaide: Wakefield Press, pp

‘Photography and Australia’, Grove

From multi-award-winning writer Helen Ennis comes the first ever biography of the photographer Max Dupain, the most influential Australian photographer of the 20th century and creator of many iconic images that have passed into our national imagination.

One of The Guardian's 25 Best Australian Books of

Max Dupain () was a major cultural figure in Australia, and at the forefront of the visual arts in a career spanning more than fifty years. During this time he produced a number of images now regarded as iconically Australian. He championed modern photography and a distinctive Australian approach.

To date, Dupain has been seen mostly in one-dimensional, limited and limiting terms - as exceptional, as super masculine, as an Australian hero. But this landmark biography approaches him as a complex and contradictory figure who, despite the apparent certitude of his photographic style, was filled with self-doubt and anxiety. Dupain was a Romantic and a rationalist and struggled with the intensity of his emotions and reactions. He wanted simplicity in his art and life, but found it difficult to attain. He never wanted to be ordinary.

Examining the sources of his creativity - literature, art, music - alongside his approaches to masculinity, love, the body, war, and nature, Max Dupain: A Portrait reveals a driven artist, one whose relationship to his work has been described as 'ferocious' and 'painful to watch'. Photographer David Moore, a long-term friend, said he 'needed to photograph like he needed to breathe. It was part of him. It gave him his drive and force in life.'

'In this deeply thought book [Ennis'] thoughts subtly accumulate into a complex portrait of a man and a rich picture of Australia Revelatory.' The Conversation

'This handsome biography a more complex man and career are revealed in lucid prose by Ennis, a leading historian of photography.' Guardian

Harold Cazneaux (–) is widely considered the greatest Australian photographer of the early 20th century.

In portraiture, architectural and industrial photography, landscapes and documentary work, he showed versatility, great imagination and technical mastery, and inspired the next generation of Australian photographers. In , Max Dupain penned a thoughtful appreciation of ‘Caz’ and selected the images reproduced in this new title.

The Cazneaux collection at the National Library comprises exhibition prints, working photographs and about 4, glass negatives, dating from roughly to

This title showcases 80 of Cazneaux's stunning images and is accompanied by an appreciation letter written by Max Dupain and a biography of Cazneaux from Alec Bolton.

The Artists of the National Library of Australia book series showcases the Library’s extensive pictures collection.