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Today we will LOOK at the portraits of Betty Churcher by Adam Knott and Quentin Bryce by Michael Zavros; THINK about presence and inspiration in portraiture; WATCH video interviews with Betty Churcher and Quentin Bryce; READ an article by Susi Muddiman; DO a couple of activities and finish with a quiz.
There are hundreds of exceptional leaders represented in the National Portrait Gallery Collection. Over many centuries, portraiture has traditionally reflected and celebrated leadership. The dominant 19th and 20th century stereotype of such a portrait is that of a restrained and besuited gentleman – often leaning on a desk holding a pen. The two 21st century portraits we are looking at today recognise two women in leadership roles: Betty Churcher and Quentin Bryce.
The Hon. Dame Quentin Bryce AD CVO (b. 1942), academic, lawyer and human rights advocate, was the first woman to be appointed governor-general of Australia. Born in Brisbane, she spent her early childhood in Ilfracombe in central western Queensland. She attained degrees in arts and law at the University of Queensland, where in 1968 she became the first female member of the law faculty. By the time she retired from teaching in 1983, she was increasingly involved in human rights and advocacy work. Between 1984 and 1993 she was director of the Queensland Women's Information Service, director of Queensland's Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and the Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner. In 1997 she became principal and chief executive officer of the Women's College within the University of Sydney. Six years later she became governor of Queensland. In 2008 she was appointed Australia's 25th governor-general, and served in this role until March 2014.
Michael Zavros commenced work on this portrait in 2015, when Bryce became chair of Queensland's Special Taskforce on Domestic and Family Violence. Zavros included the proteas as the emblem of the Taskforce, but also to signify the sitter's strength and wisdom, and the dignity of her longstanding commitment to justice and human rights.
These portraits allow us to explore a different mode of reflecting leadership qualities, and how portraits conveying such presence can inspire us. Today we are thinking about how artists convey intangible traits like wisdom, strength of character, compassion, command, authenticity, self-possession and success.
Betty Churcher AO (1931-2015), gallery director, author, painter and lecturer, was educated in Brisbane before studying art in London. In 1955 she married English artist Roy Churcher and two years later they returned to Brisbane, where throughout the 1960s Betty Churcher worked as a high school art teacher. From 1972 to 1975 she was an art critic for the Australian. A mother of four, at the age of 44 she returned to London to study art history at the Courtauld Institute, and from 1981 to 1987 she taught at Melbourne’s Preston/ Phillip Institute of Technology. In 1987, by which time she had spent some years on the Australia Council and the Visual Arts Board, she was ‘headhunted’ to become director of the Art Gallery of WA, thus becoming the first female director of an Australian state gallery. After three years in Perth she moved to Canberra to succeed James Mollison as Director of the National Gallery of Australia. Having led the institution from 1990 to 1997, from 1998 she was an Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Cross Cultural Research at the ANU, and presented three beguiling television series on art. Her books include Understanding Art (1974), which won a London Times Literary Award, and Notebooks (2011).
Betty Churcher was the Director of the National Gallery of Australia for seven years from 1990. She says: ‘The journey to being a director is a strange set of – I was going to say accidents, but – chances. It's always difficult, when you're the first of anything.’
'Blockbuster Betty'. Video length: 3 minutes
Quentin Bryce AD CVO wanted artist and fellow Queenslander Michael Zavros to paint her portrait. Here’s how they went:
Quentin Bryce. Video length: 4 minutes 47 seconds
Read
I’ll begin with an unabashed confession: I am what can only be labelled a ‘groupie’ of both the subject of this stunning portrait, and its creator.
What do you notice that is similar? What do you notice that is different? Take note of your personal preferences as you are observing the differences.
What impact do these various factors have on the final portrait?
What can we learn about the representation of women in leadership by looking at these portraits?
Connected activity
This informal portrait of Betty Churcher is joyfully uninhibited. See how many smiles you can spot in the Portrait Gallery Collection.
Phone a friend while online and both open this link to all the portraits in the National Portrait Gallery Collection.
This is a competition: the first person to find the first ten smiling portraits is the winner. Watch out – at the end you must compare notes and both agree that your selected sitters are, in fact, smiling!
