Of her portrait of award-winning writer Peter Goldsworthy AM (b. 1951), Deidre But-Husaim said: ‘I wanted to convey the process of trying to bring a thing or an idea into being … I wanted to offer a glimpse of the inner private world of Peter alone with his imagination, all unformed possibilities before him.’ In that large-scale painting, Goldsworthy turns away from the viewer, looking out through a shuttered window while seated at his desk. In this preliminary painting, however, But-Husaim completed a sensitive study of his face.
Goldsworthy’s first book of poetry, Readings from Ecclesiastes, won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, the South Australian Premier’s Award, and was joint winner of the Anne Elder Poetry Award in 1982. His debut novel, Maestro (1989), was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. Subsequent works include Three Dog Night (2003), which won the Christina Stead Award; and Everything I Knew (2008), which was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literature Award. Also an essayist and screenwriter, he wrote the libretti for the operas Summer of the Seventeenth Doll and Batavia, the latter winning him a Helpmann Award in 2002.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Commissioned with funds provided by Jillian Broadbent AC and Dr Helen Nugent AO 2018
© Deidre But-Husaim
Jillian Broadbent AC (7 portraits supported)
Dr Helen Nugent AC (4 portraits supported)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
Aimee Board ventures within and beyond to consider two remarkable new Gallery acquisitions.
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Drawn from the National Portrait Gallery collection, this salon-style hang references the lavish 18th- and 19th-century European salons where paintings were hung floor-to-ceiling.
