Elizabeth Reid AO (b. 1942), adviser on women's and public health policy, studied at the Australian National University, gaining first class honours and a scholarship to Oxford. Returning to teach at the ANU in the early 1970s, she was active in the Women's Liberation Movement and the Women's Electoral Lobby. Against a field of 400 applicants, she was appointed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam's adviser on women's affairs – the first such position created in the world. She pressed for spending on all areas of women's advancement, from employment to housing. Leaving Australia shortly before the Whitlam Government's dismissal in 1975, she advised Princess Ashraf Pahlavi of Iran on establishing the Asian and Pacific Centre for Women and Development and worked in Africa for the United Nations, the Peace Corps and USAID. Reid's husband, Bill Pruitt, was diagnosed HIV positive in 1985. Widowed the following year, she shifted her focus to include development policy around the HIV epidemic. From 1986 to 2000, she worked internationally with the UN before returning to Canberra and the ANU, where she continued to advise on HIV policy.
Painted by artist Jenny Darling, this portrait is a jewel-coloured aerial view of the feminist pioneer, dressed in a characteristic late-1980s outfit. It was in the sitter's collection until being gifted by her to the National Portrait Gallery in 2019.
Gift of Elizabeth Reid 2019
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