Hilary McPhee AO (b. 1941), writer and editor, began her career at Meanjin before starting a small magazine, Theatre. After living in the Middle East and London, she began working at Penguin in Melbourne; she worked at McKinsey as their first female writer, then as a consultant; and later at William Heinemann. In 1973, having become associated with the Women's Electoral Lobby (WEL) she collaborated on an illustrated magazine, the WEL Papers, with Diana Gribble. In 1975 the pair became founding directors of McPhee Gribble Publishers. After publishing several hundred titles, including new authors Helen Garner, Kathy Lette and Tim Winton, at the end of the 1980s McPhee Gribble was sold to Penguin, where it continued under its own imprint. She moved to MacMillan, where she directed the Picador imprint until 1994. Her Other People's Words (2001) documents her life in publishing. McPhee's selection of recent Australian writing, Wordlines, was published in 2010, and her annotated edition of filmmaker Tim Burstall's 1950s diaries, Memoirs of a Young Bastard, was published by Melbourne University Press in 2012.
Photographer Jacqueline Mitelman took this image of her friend in 2015. 'I always thought she would be a great subject. I took this portrait in her kitchen where the light was wonderful.'
Purchased with funds provided by Wayne Williams 2015
© Jacqueline Mitelman
Wayne Williams (30 portraits supported)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
Australian photographer, Jacqueline Mitelman, discusses her process for creating portraiture.
Well behaved women seldom make history, as the saying goes, and the National Portrait Gallery, consequently, is full of awesome Australian women who refused to conform to narrow ideas about their place and their worth.
