Jacqueline Mitelman

Last updated

Jacqueline Mitelman
Born
Jacqueline MacGreggor

1948 (age 75–76)
Scotland
Known forPhotography

Jacqueline Mitelman is an Australian portrait photographer.

Contents

Early life and education

Jacqueline Mitelman was born Jacqueline MacGreggor in Scotland in 1948, and has since lived in Melbourne and in France for a few years. She was briefly married to Polish emigrant the painter/printmaker Allan Mitelman. [1] She studied for a Diploma of Art and Design at Prahran College of Advanced Education 1973-76, where her lecturers were Athol Shmith, Paul Cox, and John Cato.

Career

After graduation, Mitelman practiced as a freelance photographer specialising in portraiture for magazines including the trendsetting POL , and newspapers, [2] album and book covers, and for theatre and music posters. [3] During her career she has sought out Australia's significant writers, artists and personalities for her subjects, thus creating a valuable pantheon of the country's culture. [4]

One hundred and twenty appear in her 1988 book Faces of Australia was work previously exhibited at The Art Gallery, Prahran , [5] to a lukewarm review from Age reviewer Greg Neville who while conceding that they were "professional and respectable," considered them "commercial portraiture in the sixties style, all grain and contrast, dressed up with just the right dose of Bicentenary sentiment," work that "tells us no more about the famed sitters than we already know, and nothing about the artist. [6] Tom Fantl prefaced his review of the book with the statement that in portraiture "the surface physical features are descriptive but not all telling. It is the personality and psyche which the creative artist must explore, capture and relate. It is the inherent character which the viewer is urged to see, thereby seemingly establishing an understanding, almost a relationship, with the individual portrayed."

He concludes that;

Mitelman's approach is classical and explorative. Classically her sitters look directly into the camera lens, and hence at us, (eg Harry Siedler), thereby drawing us into their space and time. By carefully positioning her subjects, yet making them appear spontaneous we feel watched even as we do the watching. [7]

Terry Lane, with the arrival of the internet nevertheless questions the value of such 'coffee-table' books as Mitelman's, even in the prior age of television, other than as 'time capsules'; "No one ever looks at it, which is a pity because I am in it." [8]

The National Portrait Gallery holds twenty of her photographs [9] including those of Dorothy Hewett, Helen Garner, Judith Wright, Jack Hibberd, [10] Peter Carey, Michael Leunig, Christina Stead, [11] Brett Whiteley, Germaine Greer, Ruby Hunter, Murray Bail, [12] Alan Marshall, Kylie Tennant, Susan Ryan, Ita Buttrose, Max Dupain [13] and Lily Brett. [14] Her depiction of Miss Alesandra [15] won the Gallery’s National Photographic Portrait prize, [16] [17] for which she received $25,000 provided by Visa International. [4] Mitelman says of her approach [18] that;

“taking photographs is a bit like a temporary infatuation, for me, because, I'm not interested in taking awkward pictures of somebody, so it's a bit like...that process when you fall in love with somebody.” [9]

Of Mitelman’s portraits of dogs when displayed at Waverley City Gallery (Monash Gallery of Art), critic Anna Clabburn wrote;

As with American photographer Bill Wegman's much earlier portraits of his pet weimaraners, there's much to be learnt from Mitelman's comic-yet-serious transposition of dogs into human guise. The anthropomorphic quality of her subjects is both inviting and vaguely disturbing, and certainly makes us think more deeply about our relationship with the beasts we so easily call "pets' [19]

Exhibitions

Awards

Collections

Publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joy Hester</span> Australian artist (1920–1960)

Joy St Clair Hester was an Australian artist. She was a member of the Angry Penguins movement and the Heide Circle who played an integral role in the development of Australian Modernism. Hester is best known for her bold and expressive ink drawings. Her work was charged with a heightened awareness of mortality due to the death of her father during her childhood, the threat of war, and her personal experience with Hodgkin's disease. Hester is most well known for the series Face, Sleep, and Love (1948–49) as well as the later works, The Lovers (1956–58).

Louis Athol Shmith was an Australian studio portrait and fashion photographer and photography educator in his home city of Melbourne, Australia. He contributed to the promotion of international photography within Australia as much as to the fostering of Australian photography in the world scene.

Del Kathryn Barton is an Australian artist who began drawing at a young age, and studied at UNSW Art & Design at the University of New South Wales. She soon became known for her psychedelic fantasy works which she has shown in solo and group exhibitions across Australia and overseas. In 2008 and 2013 she won the Archibald Prizes for portraiture presented by the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In 2015 her animated film Oscar Wilde’s The Nightingale and the Rose won the Film Victoria Erwin Rado Award for Best Australian Short Film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carol Jerrems</span> Australian photographer (1949–1980)

Carol Jerrems was an Australian photographer/filmmaker whose work emerged just as her medium was beginning to regain the acceptance as an art form that it had in the Pictorial era, and in which she newly synthesizes complicity performed, documentary and autobiographical image-making of the human subject, as exemplified in her Vale Street.

Kevin Lincoln is an Australian artist.

Angela Brennan is an Australian painter.

Ruth Maddison is an Australian photographer. She started photography in the 1970s and continues to make contributions to the Australian visual arts community.

Ponch Hawkes is an Australian photographer whose work explores intergenerational relationships, queer identity and LGBTQI+ rights, the female body, masculinity, and women at work, capturing key moments in Australia's cultural and social histories.

Brummels Gallery in South Yarra, Melbourne, Australia, was a commercial gallery established by David Yencken in 1956 to exhibit contemporary Modernist Australian painting, sculpture and prints, but after a period of dormancy became best known in the 1970s, under the directorship of Rennie Ellis, as the first in Australia to specialise in photography at a time when the medium was being revived as an art form. The gallery closed in 1980.

Kate Beynon is an Australian contemporary artist based in Melbourne.

Natalie King is an Australian curator and writer working in Melbourne, Australia. She specializes in Australian and international programs for contemporary art and visual culture. This includes exhibitions, publications, workshops, lectures and cultural partnerships across contemporary art and indigenous culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TarraWarra Museum of Art</span> Art museum in Victoria, Australia

TarraWarra Museum of Art is a public art museum in Healesville, Victoria, 45 kilometres northeast of Melbourne, on Wurundjeri Country. Welcoming audiences since 2003, TarraWarra is a leading not-for-profit art gallery that features inventive and stimulating exhibitions and programs about twentieth and twenty-first century art. The Museum has built a reputation for presenting a unique program of exhibitions curated to inspire curiosity and support emerging and established artists to make new work.

Bronwyn Kidd is an Australian photographer known for fashion and portraiture who formerly resided in London 1992-2004, and now lives in Melbourne, Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Chapman (photographer)</span> Australian photojournalist

Andrew Chapman OAM, is an Australian photojournalist.

Robert Ashton (1950) is an Australian photographer and photojournalist.

Helen Johnson is an Australian artist producing large-scale paintings who also works as a lecturer, researcher and curator. Her artworks and practice reflect her views on colonialism, consumerism, the environment and personal accountability.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hoda Afshar</span> Iranian photographer (born 1983)

Hoda Afshar is an Iranian documentary photographer who is based in Melbourne. She is known for her 2018 prize-winning portrait of Kurdish-Iranian refugee Behrouz Boochani, who suffered a long imprisonment in the Manus Island detention centre run by the Australian government. Her work has been featured in many exhibitions and is held in many permanent collections across Australia.

Heather B. Swann is an Australian contemporary artist known for her expressive surrealist sculptural objects, often combined with installation, performance and drawings. Her work draws on artisanal traditions, carving, modelling and tailoring materials to stretch, twist and manipulate her creaturely forms that are at once whimsical and darkly ambiguous. She has received numerous recognition for her work, and her pieces are held in prominent collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, Dubbo Regional Gallery and the Ian Potter Museum of Art.

" My work is a way of holding on to the world. My sculptures and drawings are figurative and modernist in expression, with curved forms, an insistent use of black and a marked surrealist accent."

Allan Mitelman is an Australian painter, printmaker and art teacher who arrived in Australia in 1953.

Justine Varga is an artist based in Sydney, and Oxford, United Kingdom. She is known for her interrogation of the photographic medium. Varga's approach is exemplified by her award-winning portrait Maternal Line, one of several awards the artist has received for her photography.

References

  1. ↑ Cross, Elizabeth; Maloon, Terence; National Gallery of Victoria (2004), Allan Mitelman : works on paper 1967-2004, National Gallery of Victoria, ISBN   978-0-7241-0250-1
  2. ↑ Helen Disney, Gail Bateman, Elizabeth Seddon (1996) 'Healthy Families and Relationships', in Australian Institute of Family Studies, (issuing body.) (1987), Family matters : newsletter of the Australian Institute of Family Studies, Australian Institute of Family Studies, ISSN   1030-2646
  3. ↑ "Portraits hit sweet spot.(Green Guide)", The Age (Melbourne, Australia), Fairfax Media Publications Pty Limited: 29, 12 February 2009, ISSN   0312-6307
  4. 1 2 Crean, Simon (24 February 2011), National Photographic Portrait Prize 2011
  5. ↑ Mitelman, Jacqueline (1988). Faces of Australia. Melbourne: Lothian. ISBN   0-85091-343-8. OCLC   27577980.
  6. ↑ Neville, Greg (18 November 1988). "Photography". The Age. p. 14.
  7. 1 2 Fantl, Tom (2 March 1990). "Books Australian faces". Australian Jewish News. p. 24. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  8. ↑ Lane, Terry (14 November 1998). "Postscript". The Age. p. 119.
  9. 1 2 "Jacqueline Mitelman: 'Buddha-nature'". National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
  10. ↑ Hibberd, J. (1995). A conversation with Jack Hibberd.[Interview by Lochner, Juliane.]. Antipodes, 9(2), 131.
  11. ↑ Hill, B. (2017). Dark star. Meanjin, 76(4), 134.
  12. ↑ Costello, M. (2017). Abu Ben Bail: a creative writer reads Murray Bail’s archived correspondence. Mosaic: an interdisciplinary critical journal, 50(3), 91-105.
  13. ↑ "With heads held high.(Features)", The Australian (National, Australia), News Limited: B14, 9 June 1999
  14. ↑ Murdoch, Anna (30 August 1986). "A child of survivors looks back in awe". The Age. p. 143.
  15. ↑ "Fierce, elegant gaze wins over portrait prize judges - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)". ABC News. 24 February 2011. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
  16. ↑ "Tip from left field.(Green Guide)", The Age (Melbourne, Australia), Fairfax Media Publications Pty Limited: 21, 14 July 2011, ISSN   0312-6307
  17. ↑ O'Riordan, M. Wonders in portrait land:[National Photographic Portrait Prize.]. Photofile, (87), 38.
  18. ↑ Waters, A., & Mitelman, J. (2019). Available natural light. Australian Rationalist, The, 113, 25.
  19. ↑ Clabburn, Anna (20 January 1999). "Posing pooches with an urban attitude". The Age. p. 17.
  20. ↑ Gallery, Hamilton. "A Dog's Life". www.hamiltongallery.org. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
  21. ↑ "Smith St portraits". www.heraldsun.com.au. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
  22. ↑ Mitelman, Jacqueline; Gaston, Vivien; TarraWarra Museum of Art (2011), Jacqueline Mitelman : facetime, TarraWarra Museum of Art, retrieved 26 January 2020
  23. ↑ "SPACE.(News)", The Age (Melbourne, Australia), Fairfax Media Publications Pty Limited: 15, 22 February 2012, ISSN   0312-6307
  24. ↑ "Art directory.(Directory)", Art and Australia, 49 (1), Art and Australia Pty. Ltd: 179(12), 22 March 2011, ISSN   0004-301X
  25. ↑ "Top Dogs". The Age. 8 January 1999. p. 40.
  26. ↑ Carr, Sylvia; National Library of Australia (1995), Beyond the picket fence : Australian women's art in the National Library's collection, National Library of Australia, ISBN   978-0-642-10637-7
  27. 1 2 3 "Jacqueline Mitelman". Design and Art Australia Online. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
  28. ↑ "Guide to antiquarian books now available". Canberra Times. 17 December 1989. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  29. ↑ "Photography". The Age. 18 November 1988. p. 50.
  30. ↑ Advertisement (16 June 1984). "Heidi Gallery". The Age. p. 169.
  31. ↑ Gilchrist, Maureen (26 July 1974). "Art". The Age. p. 6.
  32. ↑ "Jacqueline Mitelman, b. 1952". National Portrait Gallery people. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
  33. ↑ "Trove search results for 'Jacqueline Mitelman' - Pictures, photos, objects". Trove. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
  34. ↑ "Jacqueline Mitelman photograph collection". Academy Library, UNSW Canberra Special Collection MSS 249. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
  35. ↑ "Jacqueline MITELMAN | Artists | NGV". www.ngv.vic.gov.au. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
  36. ↑ "Portrait of artist James Gleeson by Jacqueline Mitelman in the Collection, Art Gallery NSW". Art Gallery NSW. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
  37. ↑ "Jacqueline Mitelman portraits in the collection of the State Library of Victoria". State Library of Victoria.
  38. ↑ "Portraits by Jacqueline Mitelman in the Heide collection". Heide Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
  39. ↑ "Jacqueline Mitelman in the MGA collection". Monash Gallery of Art. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
  40. ↑ "Collections". Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.