Description
WHO ARE YOU: Australian Portraiture is one of the most comprehensive explorations of portraiture undertaken in Australia. Drawn from the collections of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (NGV), and the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra (NPG), the artworks span disciplines and chronologies, challenging traditional perceptions about portraiture.
Encompassing themes of identity, isolation, politics, celebrity and the social sphere, WHO ARE YOU features more than 200 works by celebrated Australian artists including Patricia Piccinini, Atong Atem, Nora Heysen, Howard Arkley, Vincent Namatjira and Tracey Moffatt, and sitters including Cate Blanchett, Helena Rubinstein, David Gulpilil and Marcia Langton.
Alongside these contributions sit new essays by some of Australia’s foremost writers, artists and thinkers, including Phillip Adams, Sarah Krasnostein, William Yang, Bob Brown, Wesley Enoch AM and Carly Findlay OAM, as well as new essays by NGV and NPG curators.
SOPHIE GERHARD is Assistant Curator of Australian Art to 1980 at the National Gallery of Victoria. Prior to joining the NGV in 2019, she completed a Master of Art Curatorship at the University of Melbourne, and has also studied art history in the United Kingdom and Spain. Gerhard regularly contributes to the field of art history, most recently in the NGV's publication She-Oak and Sunlight: Australian Impressionism; she worked as Assistant Curator on the exhibition of the same name. Gerhard is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne.
JOANNA GILMOUR is Curator, Collection & Research at the National Portrait Gallery. She joined the NPG in 2008, having attained a Master of Letters from the University of Sydney and following several years with Sydney Living Museums and the National Trust S. H. Ervin Gallery. Since 2011, she has curated the NPG's permanent collection displays. Her many exhibitions and publications for the NPG include Husbands & Wives (2010), Indecent Exposure (2011), Elegance in Exile (2012), Sideshow Alley (2015), Facing New Worlds (2018), Carte-o-mania! (2018) and Australian Love Stories (2021).
PENELOPE GRIST is Curator Exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery. She holds a Master of Liberal Arts from the Australian National University and honours degrees in Law and Art History from the University of Sydney. Grist has curated and co-curated many exhibitions, including Starstruck: Australian Movie Portraits (2017) and Before Hand: The Private Life of a Portrait (2020).
DAVID HURLSTON is the NGV's Senior Curator of Australian Painting, Sculpture and Decorative Arts to 1980. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art from RMIT and completed postgraduate studies in art curatorship at the University of Melbourne. Hurlston has curated many exhibitions for the NGV, including Inge King: Constellation (2014), Shifting Gear: Design, Innovation and the Australian Car (2015), John Olsen: The You Beaut Country (2017), Roger Kemp: Visionary Modernist (2019) and Ivan Durrant: Barrier Draw (2021).
HANNAH PRESLEY is a former curator of Indigenous Art at the NGV. Her father's family are Marri Ngarr from the Moyle River region in the Northern Territory. Presley works closely with artists to respectfully represent the cultural connections that inform their work. Presley was the inaugural Yalingwa curator at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, where she curated A Lightness of Spirit is the Measure of Happiness (2018). She was First Nations Assistant Curator for Tracey Moffatt at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017.
BECKETT ROZENTALS is Curator of Australian Art to 1980 at the National Gallery of Victoria. Rozentals completed her Master of Art Curatorship at the University of Melbourne in 2009 and commenced working at the NGV the same year. Rozentals has worked as curator on numerous exhibitions for the NGV, including Robert Jacks: Order and Variation (2014), Hard Edge: Abstract Sculpture (2016), The Field Revisited (2018) and Found and Gathered: Rosalie Gascoigne | Lorraine Connelly-Northey (2021).
