Rennie Ellis (1940–2003), photographer and writer, began taking photographs while travelling around the world in the 1960s. He completed studies in advertising at RMIT in his native Melbourne in 1966 and worked in a number of ad agencies before deciding to become a freelance photographer, writer and filmmaker. In 1972, he founded Brummels Gallery of Photography, the first Australian gallery dedicated to photographs; and in 1975 established his studio, Rennie Ellis & Associates. During his career he published seventeen books and received awards including an Art Directors' Club Award for Photojournalism and a United Nations Habitat Award for photography; he received a grant from the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council. His photographs, widely exhibited in Australia and overseas, are held in collections including the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Australian Centre for Photography, France’s Bibliothèque Nationale, the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Australian Embassy in Beijing, the CUB Malthouse Collection, the ACMP Australian Photographers’ Collection, the Port Phillip Contemporary Visual Arts Collection, the State Library of NSW, the Monash Gallery of Art and private collections in Australia, UK and USA. In 2006, the National Portrait Gallery held the exhibition Rennie Ellis: Aussies All, a selection of photographs from Ellis' archive. The Portrait Gallery has twenty of his definitive photographs from the 1970s and 1980s.
