Noel Fraser Hickey (1921–2010) worked as a photographer with Kodak before serving with the Australian Imperial Force in the Second World War. He then started his own studio in Sydney, specialising in headshots and portfolio photography for aspiring fashion models. Artist Nancy Menetrey worked for Hickey as a negative retoucher, and this portrait of her sharply dressed boss was a finalist in the 1957 Archibald Prize. Among her other portrait subjects were Pat Woodley, the 1950 Miss New South Wales, who founded her own modelling agency in Sydney, and who is pictured in the photograph being held by Hickey in this painting. In the 1950s Menetrey was the first woman to join Sydney’s St George Art Society, which has since named its award for contemporary and abstract painting after her. Her portraits featured in the Portia Geach Memorial Award several times in the 1970s.
Gift of the artist 2021
© Nancy Menetrey
Nancy Menetrey (1 portrait)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
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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.
It takes a village to raise a creative! Get an insight into the often-unseen work and supporters needed for the arts to thrive. The work of art documents the creative process, evoke states of creativity and inspiration, and shows us clues about the subject’s own work from the way artists portray them.
