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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.

Jeffrey Smart

1992
Greg Weight

gelatin silver photograph on paper (sheet: 40.4 cm x 50.4 cm, image: 32.3 cm x 45.3 cm)

A tribute to Jeffrey Smart’s role as the painter of urban isolation and atomisation, Greg Weight’s photograph of the artist – in which the sweeping curve of the tunnel offsets the vertical of the solitary, substantial figure standing on the bitumen – reprises elements of Smart’s best-known work, Cahill Expressway 1962. Not long after he painted Cahill Expressway, Smart moved permanently to Italy. In 2011, he said that might, perhaps, again be able to live in Australia, which had changed a great deal since he left, ‘but I wouldn't like living where the light is so high up in the sky. I would live in Melbourne or Tasmania where the light is lower, like it is here.’

Greg Weight opened his own photographic studio in 1968, taking advertising and magazine photographs and working with the Australian Opera and the Australian Ballet. In 1970 he was invited to work in the consciously creative venue, the Yellow House in Potts Point, Sydney, photographing its artists, installations and activities. Over the next three decades he photographed artists and their works, assembling the collection published as Australian Artists: Portraits by Greg Weight in 2004.

Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
© Gregory Weight/Copyright Agency, 2024

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

Greg Weight (age 46 in 1992)

Jeffrey Smart AO (age 71 in 1992)

Subject professions

Visual arts and crafts

Donated by

Patrick Corrigan AM (130 portraits)

© National Portrait Gallery 2024
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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