Skip to main content
Menu

The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders both past and present.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that this website contains images of deceased persons.

The Gallery’s Acknowledgement of Country, and information on culturally sensitive and restricted content and the use of historic language in the collection can be found here.

Murray Bail

c. 1980 (printed 2018)
Jacqueline Mitelman

inkjet print on paper (sheet: 58.6 cm x 46.4 cm, image: 43.2 cm x 31.0 cm)
Image not available (NC)

Murray Bail (b. 1941), writer, was born in Adelaide and spent several years in India and England in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In London, he wrote for the Transatlantic Review and the Times Literary Supplement. His first book of short stories, Contemporary Portraits and Other Stories, was published in England in 1975. His first novel Homesickness (1980) won the National Book Council Award and shared the Age Book of the Year Award; Holden's Performance (1987) won the 1988 Victorian Premier's Award for fiction. Bail wrote a lyrical monograph on the artist Ian Fairweather in 1981, which was republished in 2009. Described as 'one of our most remarkable fabulists', Bail has won critical acclaim and a number of major Australian literary honours, including the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Miles Franklin Award for the beguiling Eucalyptus (1998). His subsequent novels include The Pages (2008) and The Voyage (2012). In 2021 he published his collection of autobiographical writings, He.

Jacqueline Mitelman's intimate photographic portrait of Bail captures him as a handsome, young intellectual, on the verge of fame with his award-winning first novel Homesickness.

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018

The National Portrait Gallery respects the artistic and intellectual property rights of others. Works of art from the collection are reproduced as per the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). The use of images of works from the collection may be restricted under the Act. Requests for a reproduction of a work of art can be made through a Reproduction request. For further information please contact NPG Copyright.

Artist and subject

Jacqueline Mitelman (age 28 in 1980)

Murray Bail (age 39 in 1980)

© National Portrait Gallery 2024
King Edward Terrace, Parkes
Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia

Phone +61 2 6102 7000
ABN: 54 74 277 1196

The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past and present. We respectfully advise that this site includes works by, images of, names of, voices of and references to deceased people.

This website comprises and contains copyrighted materials and works. Copyright in all materials and/or works comprising or contained within this website remains with the National Portrait Gallery and other copyright owners as specified.

The National Portrait Gallery respects the artistic and intellectual property rights of others. The use of images of works of art reproduced on this website and all other content may be restricted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). Requests for a reproduction of a work of art or other content can be made through a Reproduction request. For further information please contact NPG Copyright.

The National Portrait Gallery is an Australian Government Agency