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Bruce Dawe AO (b. 1930), poet and teacher, was born in Fitzroy and worked as a labourer, clerk, sawmill hand, farmhand and postman before joining the RAAF in 1959. Ten years later he began teaching literature in Toowoomba, where he remained, completing four degrees part-time, eventually becoming an Associate Professor at the University of Southern Queensland and publishing more than a dozen books of poetry. Along with Les Murray, Dawe is arguably Australia’s most popular poet. After the publication of A Need of Similar Name in 1965, he won major literary awards including the Myer Poetry Prize (1965, 1968), the Grace Leven Poetry Prize (1978), the Patrick White Literary Award (1980) and the Christopher Brennan Award (1984). In 1999 he himself endowed the Bruce Dawe Poetry Prize. Bruce Dawe’s elegiac poem, ‘the shadow broken free’, was read at David Moore’s funeral in Sydney in 2003.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
The series David Moore: From Face to Face was acquired by gift of the artist and financial assistance from Timothy Fairfax AC and L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2001
Accession number: 2001.128
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On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves: who we read, who we watch, who we listen to, who we cheer for, who we aspire to be, and who we'll never forget. The Companion is available to buy online and in the Portrait Gallery Store.
Michael Desmond discusses Fred Williams' portraits of friends, artist Clifton Pugh, David Aspden and writer Stephen Murray-Smith, and the stylistic connections between his portraits and landscapes.
The acquisition of David Moore's archive of portrait photographs for the National Portrait Gallery's collection.
This exhibition showcases portraits acquired through the generosity of the National Portrait Gallery’s Founding Patrons, L Gordon Darling AC CMG and Marilyn Darling AC.