Kurt Fearnley AO (b. 1981), athlete, won four world titles, three Paralympic gold medals and over 40 marathons in a distinguished twenty-year career. Fearnley was born with a condition that had prevented the development of his spine, yet growing up in Carcoar, New South Wales, he enthusiastically participated in football and other sports alongside his brothers and schoolmates. He took up wheelchair racing at fourteen and was nineteen when he won silver medals in the 800 metres and the 4 x 100 metres relay at the Paralympic Games in Sydney. At the 2004 Athens Paralympics he won gold in the 5000 metres and the marathon, the final five kilometres of which he wheeled with a flat tyre. Between 2004 and 2014 he amassed four World Championship gold medals, one Commonwealth Games gold medal, and another Paralympic gold; plus three victories in the Chicago marathon, one in the London marathon and five in the New York marathon. In 2011 he crawled the Kokoda Track to raise money for Movember and Beyond Blue and was part of the crew that took line honours in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race. Fearnley captained the Australian team at the 2016 Paralympics in Rio and won his second Commonwealth marathon gold at the Gold Coast Games in 2018. An inspirational spokesperson on disability issues, Fearnley was named an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2018 and was the 2019 New South Wales Australian of the Year.
Adam Knott (b. 1966) began taking photographs for local newspapers as a schoolboy in Sydney before getting a job at News Limited as Rupert Murdoch’s copyboy. Having gained a photographic cadetship in 1985, he became nationwide Cadet of the Year and went to Hong Kong to work for the South China Morning Post. Back in Australia from 1989, he struck up friendships with photographers Max Dupain and David Moore, both of whom became his mentors. After a thirteen-year period working in the United States, Knott settled in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. His photographs have appeared in numerous magazines, and he has been staff photographer for the Weekend Australian Magazine, Wish magazine and the Deal. This portrait of Fearnley is one of several works by Knott in the Gallery’s collection.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
© Adam Knott
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.
When a portrait communicates determination and individuality as boldly as these do, it has the potential to become an iconic image. For the Gallery’s 20th birthday this display brings together a group contemporary photographic portraits of inspiring women and men.
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