Nick Cave

Nick Cave AO (b. 1957), singer, songwriter and author, was born in Warracknabeal, Victoria, and educated at Caulfield Grammar School, where he formed his first band, The Boys Next Door. In 1980, the band changed its name to The Birthday Party and moved to London, where it significantly influenced other punk bands. With several talented recruits, members of the Birthday Party formed The Bad Seeds, whose first album was released in 1984. Soon after, Cave began his diverse involvement in films, appearing in the arthouse sensation Wings of Desire (1987); co-writing, acting in and writing the soundtrack for Ghosts . . . of the Civil Dead (1988); scripting The Proposition (2006) and appearing in I'm Your Man (2005–2006). He co-wrote and starred in a wry documentary about himself, 20 000 Days on Earth (2014); and another biographical film, One More Time with Feeling, was made during the recording of the Bad Seeds' sixteenth studio album Skeleton Tree (2016). Cave has also published two novels, And the Ass Saw the Angel (1989) and The Death of Bunny Munro (2009), and the autobiographical photobook Stranger Than Kindness (2020).

In 1997, photographer Ingvar Kenne created the first of the portraits that eventually formed a series called Citizen. The series encompasses portraits of famous and anonymous subjects as well as commissioned photographs and those that came about by chance. Either way, Kenne applied the same approach: a Mamiya 6 medium format camera, colour film, and whatever background happened to be available. 'Their public persona (whether they have one) was almost beside the point', Kenne says; 'I wanted them to simply represent man or woman'.

Gift of the artist 2017. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
© Ingvar Kenne