Helen Ennis Helen Ennis i(A93108 works by)
Gender: Female
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BiographyHistory

'Professor Helen Ennis is internationally recognised as the foremost expert on Australian photographic history. Her career began at the National Gallery of Australia where she was appointed Curator of Photography in 1985 and pioneered a major series of scholarly exhibitions and publications. Her extensive publications and catalogues for national cultural institutions have been awarded numerous prizes. Her book Margaret Michaelis: Love, loss and photography was awarded the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction and the AAANZ Book Prize in 2006. Her curatorial work has deepened an understanding of Australian visual culture inquiry by relating it to a wider social and cultural history. She has been the Director of the Centre for Art History and Art Theory at The Australian National University School of Art and the Sir William Dobell Chair of Art History.' (Source: The Australian Academy of the Humanities website)

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Olive Cotton : A Life in Photography Pymble : Fourth Estate , 2019 16573779 2019 single work biography

'A landmark biography of a singular and important Australian photographer, Olive Cotton, by an award-winning writer - beautifully written and deeply moving.

'Olive Cotton was one of Australia's pioneering modernist photographers, a woman whose talent was recognised as equal to her first husband's, Max Dupain, and a significant artist in her own right. Together, Olive and Max could have been Australia's answer to Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, or Ray and Charles Eames. The photographic work they produced during the 1930s and '40s was extraordinary and distinctively their own.

'But in the early 1940s Cotton quit their marriage and Sydney studio to live with second husband Ross McInerney and raise their two children in a tent on a farm near Cowra - later moving to a hut that had no running water, electricity or telephone. Despite these barriers, and not having access to a darkroom, Olive continued her photography but away from the public eye. Then a landmark exhibition in Sydney in 1985 shot her back to fame, followed by a major retrospective at the AGNSW in 2000. Australian photography would never be same.

'This is a moving and powerful story about talent, creativity and women, and about what it means for an artist to manage the competing demands of art, work, marriage, children and family.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

2020 winner Canberra Critics Circle Awards Writing (Biography)
2022 winner Festival Awards for Literature (SA) Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature South Australian Literary Awards Award for Non-Fiction
2012 winner Australian Centre Literary Awards Peter Blazey Fellowship
2020 winner Queensland Literary Awards Non-Fiction Book Award
2020 longlisted Mark and Evette Moran Nib Award for Literature
2020 winner ASAL Awards The Australian Historical Association Awards Magarey Medal for Biography
2020 longlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) Australian Illustrated Book of the Year
y separately published work icon Wolfgang Sievers Canberra : National Library of Australia , 2011 Z1806953 2011 single work biography 'Wolfgang Sievers (1913-2007) fled Nazi Germany to make Australia his home in 1938. His European heritage, specifically his education in Berlin, were to shape his aesthetic response to his adopted country, where he excelled in the fields of architectural, industrial and mining photography.

'Sievers documented the post-war boom in manufacturing and the working conditions of many Australians. Included in this book are images of industries now long gone, including Colortex Fabrics and the Bryant and May match factory. Sievers explored the individuality of particular workers and their role in the modern machine age, celebrating modernity and progress. He also evoked the beauty and excitement of the industrial forms that surrounded them in the days when technology was viewed as benevolent. His images constitute a unique body of work and are a window onto Australian history, culture and photography.

'The images in this book are from the National Library of Australia's Wolfgang Sievers Photographic Archive of 65 000 photographs.' (From the publisher's website.)
2012 shortlisted Australian Capital Territory Book of the Year Award
y separately published work icon Margaret Michaelis : Love, Loss and Photography Canberra : National Gallery of Australia , 2005 Z1241761 2005 single work biography
2006 winner Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Award for Non-Fiction
Last amended 15 Nov 2021 11:40:02
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