Shakespeare to Winehouse open 9:00am–7:00pm on Thu, Fri, Sat from 7 July
Simone Young AM (b. 1961) is one of the leading conductors of her generation. At 25, she became the youngest resident conductor at Opera Australia, and was the first woman to conduct at the Vienna State Opera and at the Bastille Opera in Paris. Director of Opera Australia from 2001 to 2003, she then worked for ten years, from 2005, as the Artistic Director of the Hamburg State Opera and Music Director of the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra. Based in Sussex, England, Young is returning to Australia in 2022 to become the Sydney Symphony Orchestra's chief conductor.
Bill Henson and Young share a love of German Romantic opera, and this connection constituted the foundation of the relationship between sitter and artist. Henson says of the portrait: 'I was interested in the way great music affects us. The sheer force of such beauty causes us to fall in love. It is that love that I wanted to see transform the subject’s appearance. But strangely, to suggest any of this, one must step back … Only across such a distance might one describe such intimacy and such longing.' Young herself has compared the portrait's structure to the three acts of an opera.
Commissioned with funds from the Farrell Family Foundation and the Basil Bressler Bequest 2002
© Bill Henson
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves: who we read, who we watch, who we listen to, who we cheer for, who we aspire to be, and who we'll never forget. The Companion is available to buy online and in the Portrait Gallery Store.
Photographer Bill Henson describes creating his three part portrait of Simone Young.
Penelope Grist speaks to Bill Henson and Simone Young to discover the origins of the artist’s stunning photographic triptych.