Helen Ennis is one of Australia’s preeminent curators and writers on photography. She will be presenting a talk on Olive Cotton following the publication of her book ‘Olive Cotton a life in photography’.

Entry fee $15 / Free for young people 18 and under.

Don’t miss this opportunity to hear Emeritus Professor Helen Ennis’ articulate and insightful commentary on Cotton’s work:

Her experimentation with light and its effects, with composition and vantage point, extended the vocabulary of modernism in Australian art to encompass gentler, less heroic modes of expression. Today, her photographs still stand out for their beauty and serenity, and often for their sensuousness as well. In their own quiet way, they have enlarged our sense of the capacity of art photography to move its viewers.

Helen Ennis

Helen has published a number of major works including: Reveries: Photography and Mortality, Photography and Australia and the acclaimed biographies Margaret Michaelis: Love, loss and photography and Olive Cotton: A life in photography. She was awarded the J Dudley Johnson Medal by the British Royal Photographic Society in 2021. Helen was formerly Director, ANU Centre for Art History and Theory, ANU School of Art & Design and is now Emeritus Professor. She is currently working on a biography of photographer Max Dupain.