Related portraits
1. Murray Bail, 1980-1981. All Fred Williams.
Artist Jinx Nolan’s vibrant painting of writer Murray Bail (b. 1941) recalls many of her adoptive father Sidney Nolan’s portraits in its expressive execution and simplicity of form. It is a diminutive yet distinctive work, a modern-day ‘miniature’ that demonstrates wit and verve.
Bail has created enduring, distinctive and original stories on Australian themes and experiences. He spent several years in London in the late 1960s and early 1970s, where he wrote for the Transatlantic Review and the Times Literary Supplement, and published his first book of short stories, Contemporary Portraits and Other Stories in 1975. His first novel Homesickness (1980) won the National Book Council Award and shared the Age Book of the Year Award; Holden’s Performance (1987) won the 1988 Victorian Premier’s Award for fiction. His critically acclaimed 1998 novel Eucalyptus, which won the Miles Franklin Award, Australia’s most prestigious literary prize, has been voted one of the top 20 must-read Australian novels. In 2021 he published his collection of autobiographical writings, He.
Gift of an anonymous donor 2021
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
Dr Sarah Engledow explores the portraits of writers held in the National Portrait Gallery's collection.
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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.
