Henry Lawson (1867-1922), one of Australia's defining authors, is best known for his short stories and ballads depicting the hardship of bush life. Lawson spent his childhood on a poor selection in the Mudgee district in New South Wales. He received little formal education, but he was encouraged to read widely by his mother, the women's rights activist and writer, Louisa Lawson. A regular contributor to the Bulletin in the 1890s, he supported its nationalist, egalitarian and pro-union stance. In that decade, too, he wrote scores of stories and vignettes, the best of them - such as 'The Drover's Wife' and 'The Bush Undertaker'- haunting, profoundly sad and wryly funny all at once. Despite catastrophic bouts of depression and alcoholism, Lawson continued to write until his death in Sydney at the age of 55, when he was honoured with a State funeral.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2001
© Estate of Joe Greenberg
Joe Greenberg (37 portraits)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
Sarah Engledow ponders the divergent legacies of Messrs Kendall and Lawson.
A collection of thirty-seven caricatures by the artist Joe Greenberg capture the heroes and villians of Australian business in the 1980s.
