Ticketed entry is in place to safely manage your visit so please book ahead. Need to cancel or rejig? Email bookings@npg.gov.au
John Nixon (1949–2020), installation artist and painter, studied at the Preston Institute of Technology and the National Gallery School in the late 1960s and 1970. Becoming interested in multi-media art and art as language, he showed at the Pinocotheca Gallery between 1973 and 1977 and was represented in many important group shows from 1975 onward. Over time, he was to develop a minimalist, abstract aesthetic influenced by the utopian art and politics of Kasimir Malevich. At the beginning of the 1980s he and his then-wife, Jenny Watson, established Art Projects, an austere space reached by many flights of stairs in a rambling city building. A number of Nixon’s works from the early 1980s onwards came under the umbrella title of Self-portrait (non-objective composition) including abstracts using only the techniques, materials and compositional modes of the Constructivists. In 1990 he began the Experimental Painting Workshop (EPW), and from 1995 produced a plethora of predominantly orange works; later he took to ‘furtive’ use of silver and to creating polychromatic abstracts. His work is represented in the National Gallery of Australia, most state galleries and Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012
© Estate of Robert Rooney
Accession number: 2012.99
Copyright image request form
Request a digital copy of an image for publication
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.
Explore portraiture and come face to face with Australian identity, history, culture, creativity and diversity.
Timed ticketing, location, accessibility and amenities
We depend on your support to keep creating our programs, exhibitions, publications and building the amazing portrait collection!