Max Dupain

From multi-award-winning writer Helen Ennis comes the first ever biography of the photographer Max Dupain, the most influential Australian photographer of the 20th century and creator of many iconic images that have passed into our national imagination.

Max Dupain (1911-1992) was a major cultural figure in Australia who was at the forefront of the visual arts in a career spanning more than fifty years. During this time he produced a number of images now regarded as iconic (The Sunbaker, Meat Queue, Form at Bondi, At Newport). He championed modern photography and a distinctive Australian approach.

However, to date Dupain has been seen mostly in one-dimensional, limited and limiting terms - as exceptional, as super masculine, as an Australian hero. But this landmark biography approaches him as a complex and contradictory figure who, despite the apparent certitude of his photographic style, was filled with self-doubt and anxiety. Dupain was a Romantic and a rationalist and struggled with the intensity of his emotions and reactions. He wanted simplicity in his art and life but found it difficult to attain. He never wanted to be ordinary.

Examining the sources of his creativity - literature, art, music - alongside his approach to masculinity, love, the body, war, and nature, Max Dupain: A Portrait reveals a driven artist, one whose relationship to his work has been described as 'ferocious' and 'painful to watch'. Photographer David Moore, a long-term friend, said he 'needed to photograph like he needed to breathe. It was part of him. It gave his drive and force in life.'

About the Author

Helen Ennis writes on Australian photography and photographers. She was formerly Curator of Photography at the National Gallery of Australia and Director of the Centre for Art History and Art Theory and Sir William Dobell Chair of Art History at the ANU School of Art & Design; she is currently Emeritus Professor. She has curated numerous exhibitions for the National Gallery of Australia, the National Portrait Gallery and the National Library of Australia. Her many books include Margaret Michaelis: Love, loss and photography (2005), winner of the 2006 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Non-Fiction, and Olive Cotton: A life in photography (2019), winner of the 2020 Queensland Literary Award for Non-Fiction, the 2022 Adelaide Festival Award for Non-Fiction, and the 2020 Magarey Medal for Biography. She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities and was awarded the J. Dudley Johnston Medal by the British Royal Photographic Society in 2021.