© National Portrait Gallery 2020
King Edward Terrace, Parkes
Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
Phone +61 2 6102 7000
Fax +61 2 6102 7001
ABN: 54 74 277 1196
Elena Kats-Chernin trained at the Gnessin Musical College in Moscow before moving to Australia in 1975. On graduation from the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music in 1980 she gained a DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst) grant to study with Helmut Lachenmann in Hanover. She spent thirteen years in Germany before returning to Australia, where she now lives in Sydney. Among her many commissions are pieces for Ensemble Modern, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Australian World Orchestra, the Adelaide, Tasmanian, Melbourne and Sydney Symphony Orchestras, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, the City of London Sinfonia, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and the North Carolina Symphony. In 2011 Kats-Chernin was appointed composer-in-residence with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and in 2017 she played the same role with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. In between, her CD Butterflying (comprising piano works for four hands, with Tamara-Anna Cislowska, released on ABC Classics) was at the top of ARIA Classical Core Chart for 13 weeks, reaching number 1 in September 2016. Her Unsent love letters: meditations on Erik Satie (piano solo, featuring Tamara-Anna Cislowska, released on ABC Classics) debuted at number 1 on the ARIA Classical Chart in March 2017. Choreographers around the world have created dances around Kats-Chernin’s music and it has often featured in television, advertising and film scores.
The title The Witching Hour refers to a concerto for eight double basses composed by Kats-Chernin for the Australian World Orchestra, performed at the Sydney Opera House in September 2016 and at Singapore’s Esplanade Concert Hall the following month. The composer and the artist are friends, and the painting was Sharpe’s Archibald entry for 2017 (it was hung in the Salon des Refusés). The development of the work was recorded in a Mint Pictures documentary about the Archibald shown on Foxtel Arts that year.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with the assistance of the Circle of Friends 2018
Vote for this portrait for your chance to win 1-of-5 Golden Tickets, giving you free entry into all NPG exhibitions and 10% off purchases at the café and bookstore for a whole year!
Voting closes Sunday 16 February 2020. Terms and conditions apply.
Accession number: 2018.122
Currently on display: Gallery Eight (Temporary Exhibition Gallery)
Copyright image request form
Request a digital copy of an image for publication
Join leading Australian artist Wendy Sharpe, as she discusses her interest in painting people, with particular reference to her bold, evocative portrait of Elena Kats-Chernin.
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.
from Saturday 14 December 2019
Eye to Eye is a summer Portrait Gallery Collection remix arranged by degree of eye contact – from turned away with eyes closed all the way through to right-back-at-you – as we explore artists’ and subjects’ choices around the direction of the gaze.
Explore portraiture and come face to face with Australian identity, history, culture, creativity and diversity.