Rod McNicol (born Melbourne 1946) is an Australian photographer.
Rod McNicol |
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In 1968 he left for Europe and spent the following four years travelling and working in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. He returned to Australia in 1973 and studied photography at Prahran College in 1974. In 1975 he co-founded The Photographers' Gallery and Workshop, South Yarra. [1]
McNicol held his first exhibition (shared with Carol Jerrems) at Brummels Gallery in 1978, [2] and later that same year he moved into an old warehouse studio in Fitzroy. He has lived and worked in this old daylit studio since then, refining and defining his singular fascination with photographic portraiture. [3]
McNicol has always drawn his sitters from those around him, his peers, his friends, and other subjects from the rich inner-city life of his milieu. Echoing early 19th century photographic portraiture by evoking a gentle stillness tempered by an unrelenting directness to the camera, he pares portraiture back to something of its bare essence. [1]
McNicol studied Photography at Prahran College 1970s [4] and in 2007 he completed an MFA (Masters of Fine Art) at Monash University. [1]
In 2004, he won the Australian Photographic Portrait Prize [5] at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and in 2012 he won the National Photographic Portrait Prize, [6] held at the National Portrait Gallery (Australia). He has works in major collections including: the National Gallery of Victoria, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Portrait Gallery (Australia), the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France.