Michel Lawrence’s portrait of Sid Nolan as Ned Kelly is just one of 100 of Australia’s most prominent painters, sculptors and print-makers photographed over a ten-year period from the mid-1980s until the mid-1990s.

The photographs were exhibited at Australian Galleries Melbourne and Sydney and published as Framed-Portraits of Australian Painters published by Hardie Grant. The book is now out of print but can be found sometimes on Ebay.

Elwyn Lynn, The Weekend Australian’s art critic wrote:

“You can have wonderful fun, whether you want to treat these photographs as slightly satirical or evidence for the analyst.”

In a review of the book Framed, Richard Guilliatt writing in Good Weekend recalled:” …Nolan was stiff and unresponsive until the photographer pulled out a prop for him to pose with- a cardboard cutout that resembled the Ned Kelly masks of Nolan’s famous paintings.”

And the leading Australian art historian, art critic and curator who has published some twenty books and over two thousand articles, Emeritus Professor Sasha Grishin of the ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences wrote in his Canberra Times review: “… at his best, Lawrence is a great photographer.”

The photographs are in numerous private and public collections including the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, The National Library, The Museum of Modern Art at Heide, The Queensland Art Gallery, Melbourne University, numerous regional galleries and a number of private collections.

Above: Portrait of  Sid Nolan- photographed by Michel Lawrence enjoying himself as Ned Kelly. This photo is in a number of public and private collections most notably at The Museum of Modern Art at Heide, which is where of course, Nolan painted his ground breaking Kelly series.

You can view Michel Lawrence’s photo of Lloyd Rees at the National Portrait Gallery

Michel Lawrence photographed Arthur Boyd at Shoalhaven, looking towards the river.

This portrait of Donald Friend was featured in the Donald Friend Retrospective at The Art Gallery of New South Wales and was also the featured portrait in the book, Donald Friend by Barry Pearce,

David Larwill in his studio.