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Articles on Portraiture

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Vincent Namatjira, Western Aranda people, Northern Territory, born Mparntwe (Alice Springs), Northern Territory, 14 June 1983. The Indulkana Tigers, 2014, Indulkana, Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands, South Australia synthetic polymer paint on linen 122.0 x 152.0 cm Private Collection © Vincent Namatjira.

Vincent Namatjira’s paintbrush is his weapon. With an infectious energy and wry humour, nothing is off limits

Vincent Namatjira, a Western Arrernte artist, is Albert Namatjira’s great-grandson. His genre is portraiture, but with a twist: loaded with satire and post-colonial politics.
Though Richard Avedon started his career as a fashion photographer, he later became known for his unflinching eye. Jack Mitchell/Getty Images

Richard Avedon, Truman Capote and the brutality of photography

In a 1959 essay, Capote noted how Avedon seemed to capture ‘every hard-earned crow’s foot’ in his subjects – perhaps not realizing that he would one day be photographed by that same unvarnished gaze.
Winner: Archibald Prize 1972: Clifton Pugh. ‘The Hon EG Whitlam’ 1972. Oil on composition board, 113.5 x 141.5 cm. © Estate of Clifton Pugh

‘I think Archie would be pleased’: 100 years of our most famous portrait prize and my almost 50 years watching it evolve

It’s 100 years since the Art Gallery of NSW first held the Archibald Prize. Though loathed by some critics, it is an annual snapshot of the kind of society we are, and who our heroes might be.
‘Portrait of a Woman of the Hofer Family,’ Swabian artist, c. 1470, and a picture showing a fly on U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence during the Oct. 7 debate at University of Utah in Salt Lake City. (Wikimedia Commons/AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Mike Pence’s fly: From Renaissance portraits to Salvador Dalí, artists used flies to make a point about appearances

Flies have long held symbolic meaning in the history of art. In portraits made in Renaissance Europe, the presence of a fly symbolizes the transience of human life.
A self-portrait of George Platt Lynes from 1952. Gelatin silver print, 7-5/8 × 9 in. From the Collections of the Kinsey Institute, Indiana University. © Estate of George Platt Lynes.

The forgotten legacy of gay photographer George Platt Lynes

Lynes was a highly sought-after commercial and fashion photographer in the 1930s and 1940s. But he had to keep his most important body of work hidden away.

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