Sigrid Thornton AO (b. 1959), actor, has been a household name since her performance in the box-office hit The Man from Snowy River in 1981. She began appearing on Australian television in the mid-1970s, in series including Homicide, Division Four and Prisoner. After roles in the 1977 films FJ Holden and The Getting of Wisdom she starred in the television series All the Rivers Run (1983), which set Australian ratings history and gained Thornton a Silver Logie for Most Outstanding Actress. Through the 1980s and 1990s she performed in a variety of film and television productions, before her starring role in Sea Change, which became one of the ABC's best-loved shows. She starred in three series of the hit show between 1998 and 2000, receiving her second Silver Logie in 2000, and was an executive producer on the long-awaited 2019 Seachange reboot. Thornton has performed on stage to rave reviews in productions including A Little Night Music, The Blue Room, Talking Heads and Fiddler on the Roof. In 2021 she starred in the Channel Nine drama Amazing Grace.
Drawing was an essential part of Andrew Sibley's practice, and the National Portrait Gallery has eighteen of the artist's portraits in pencil and ink. This portrait of Thornton is a working drawing for a painting that Sibley entered into the 2000 Archibald Prize.
Purchased 2010
© Andrew Sibley/Copyright Agency, 2022
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