William Read was active in London in the 1820s and 1830s and appears to have worked mainly as an engraver of portraits.
1 portrait in the collection
Richard Read junior arrived in Sydney from his native London in November 1819.
2 portraits in the collection
Elizabeth Read (née Archer c. 1820–1884) had already spent time in gaol for offences including drunkenness and being ‘lewd and disorderly’ when, in 1840, she was found guilty of stealing and sentenced to transportation ‘beyond the sea’.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased 2019
Gift of Eleanor Thornton 2013. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Purchased 2013
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009
Elegance in exile is an exhibition surveying the work of Richard Read senior, Thomas Bock, Thomas Griffiths Wainewright and Charles Rodius: four artists who, though exiled to Australia as convicts, created many of the most significant and elegant portraits of the colonial period.
Recorded 2022
Recorded 2017
Recorded 2016
"It’s good to learn from old people. They keep saying when you paint you can remember that Country, just like to take a photo, but there’s the Ngarranggarni (Dreaming) and everything. Good to put it in painting, your Country, so kids can know and understand. When the old people die, young people can read the stories from the paintings. They can learn from the paintings and maybe they want to start painting too."
The portrait's of my mother, Catherine, and the photograph was taken in a family home that we had and my mother was relocating to Tasmania.
The National Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition is selected from a national field of entries, reflecting the distinctive vision of Australia's aspiring and professional portrait photographers and the unique nature of their subjects.