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Hello everyone
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and welcome to another virtual highlights tour at
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the National Portrait Gallery.
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You may be familiar with some of our tours.
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We have quite a few familiar faces coming through the doors
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at the moment.
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Welcome, welcome to everybody.
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My name's Gill, my pronouns are she/her
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and I'm really happy to be here today to introduce this
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programme to you.
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If you would like to, we really do love faces,
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isn't that a strange thing, working at the Portrait Gallery,
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we love to see faces.
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So if you feel comfortable, we'd really like it
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if you could leave your cameras on
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so we can see all your wonderful faces out there
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and react to everything that's coming through.
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Now, if you would like to join in that our conversation
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and we really encourage you to,
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because our programmes are all highly interactive,
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we'd really like you to use the chat function here on zoom,
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which is on the bottom bar along the bottom.
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If you'd like to kick off by letting us know where you are
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and where you're joining us from today,
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you can enter that into the chat bar.
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I am broadcasting today, not from my bedroom.
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I'm so excited,
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I'm actually have been given special dispensation to be back
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in the National Portrait Gallery building
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to broadcast this programme today, which is not the same,
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unfortunately for our delightful guest, Penny, our curator,
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who's going to be taking you on this programme.
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She's still stuck in her lounge room,
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but I am broadcasting from the National Portrait Gallery,
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which is on the beautiful lands
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of the Namibian Ngunnawal peoples
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and I'd love to pay my respects to their elders past,
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present and emerging
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and extend that same respect to the traditional
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custodians of any of the lands
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on which you're coming to us from today.
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So these tours, if you've been following along,
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only came into being on Thursdays.
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When we went into lockdown in Canberra,
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which was about seven weeks ago,
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and we decided on top of our wonderful Tuesday tours,
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we'd bring out some of our other staff from
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the Portrait Gallery to give you another,
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insight into the collection or a slightly quirky,
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slightly off-beat, slightly different experience
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to what you might experience on the Tuesdays.
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So today, we've got Penny back,
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you may remember her from a couple of weeks ago.
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We had a fantastic tour with Penny
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and we're going to experiment with the same concept
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we had a couple of weeks ago,
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which was that we're going to let you,
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our fabulous audience direct the tour.
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So as part of this particular tour,
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we're going to ask you to vote on certain portraits,
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which Penny will present,
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and that will decide for us which path we're going to take.
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So you may see,
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after Penny asks us to vote,
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a polling pop-up screen come up,
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with asking you to vote on which portrait.
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You just click on which one you would prefer,
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and then we'll share the results.
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And off we go down the rabbit hole again.
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So let's get underway.
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I'd like to bring Penny into the conversation,
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get rid of my face.
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I'm going to be running around in the background,
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running the polls and shooting
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any of your questions to Penny.
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So let's get going.
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Hello everyone, good afternoon.
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I'm really happy to be doing this programme again
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because it was so much fun last time.
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And I was a little bit quick at preparing for it this time
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I went down slightly fewer rabbit holes, though,
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I think there'll be evidence that I did go down some
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in preparing for today, but let's just get started.
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So the portrait that we're going to get started with,
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and that you would've noticed when you clicked
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into the programme is the beautiful portrait
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of Maggie Tabberer by Alana Landsberry.
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I'm just going to put,
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let's have that up on the screen Hector,
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there we go.
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Such a gorgeous portrait.
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So this is Maggie Tabberer of television
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and Australian Women's Weekly fame, in 2015,
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and I'm just going to bring up my virtual backgrounds so I
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can bring Maggie into my study here.
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So Maggie Tabberer,
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I'm actually gonna start with a little quote I found
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from Maggie when she first started as the fashion editor
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of The Women's Weekly, in 1981,
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the year I was born actually.
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I like things from 1981.
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So this was from her article
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called That Special Look of Style.
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So she says,
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"Way, way back, well about 23 years,
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I was discovered, as they say in the modelling world,
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and started working in the fashion scene in Melbourne.
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In my modelling days, we suffered Merry Widow boned bras,
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ouch, waist clinches, grown."
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This commentary is all hers, by the way.
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"And girdles designed to eliminate
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even the slightest natural excess, sheer hell.
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There were crippling stilettos,
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hobble skirts, silly hats,
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and skinned black gloves,
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with a zillion frustrating buttons,
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which somehow had to be done up.
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I vividly recall going for an interview at that
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beautiful store, George's of Collins Street,
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how thrilled I was to be chosen for their parades.
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In those days, if you got to do the George's parades,
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you'd arrived".
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I just thought that was a lovely, you know,
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rather than me recounting Maggie's
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sort of backstory biography,
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I thought that was just a really lovely summary.
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So she did start as a model and then was
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Australian Women's Weekly fashion editor,
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really became synonymous with that publication
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for about 15 years.
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I also really love this portrait because it has that,
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it's interesting to portraits in the Portrait Gallery
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of people who are famous with their images.
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So that trademark look, the turban and her poise,
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something already very familiar to Australians
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and very much part of her identity
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and essential to put into the portrait.
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But without it looking like just another page
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from a magazine,
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and this is this definitely encapsulates that spirit.
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I love, it's just so comfortable.
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It's comfortable and relaxed, but she also has that lovely,
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direct gaze.
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Now,
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another thing I really love about this portrait
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is a little bit of the backstory.
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So Alana Landsberry, the photographer,
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was the daughter of another,
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her father was a fashion photographer as well,
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a photographer for magazines,
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and many, many years earlier,
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had photographed Maggie Tabberer.
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And while he was setting up his equipment,
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he handed his baby daughter over to Maggie to hold
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and that was Alana, the photographer of this portrait.
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Isn't that lovely?
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And so when Alana came to come and photograph Maggie,
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she brought her baby son and Maggie held her son
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while she was setting up her equipment.
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And not only is that just like gives you a warm,
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fuzzy feeling generally,
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but it's sort of testament to the relationships
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between the artists and the sitters,
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in our collection.
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So we see them in this moment,
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this one moment of interaction in the portrait,
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but actually there's these beautiful lifelong relationships
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that go on through both of these people's lives,
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the more invisible artist and the very visible celebrity.
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So Maggie,
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should we follow Maggie down the down the rabbit hole,
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past a few Gold Logies and see where we might go next.
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Now, everyone,
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this is a super important decision to make, right?
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This will like really determine where the story goes.
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So treat this vote very seriously.
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Hector, should we bring up the two options?
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Maggie does look a little bit like a white rabbit.
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All right.
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All right.
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So who wants to know what the connection is between
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beautiful Maggie Tabberer and Janice Wakely,
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who our colleague, Matt,
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very accurately described this portrait
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as her going perse first into the traffic.
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I'm very pleased to be able to use that line
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because it's a lovely description of what she's doing there
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and Jeanne Little.
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Okay, here comes the poll,
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everybody, please cast your votes,
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which portrait path are we going to follow today?
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Well, here they all come, everyone's voting, voting.
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Ooh. (laughing)
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Penny which one do you secretly hope
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that we're going to follow?
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Oh look, I'm not going to tell you,
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actually, these are two,
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this is a very hard choice.
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Very hard choice.
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'Cause they're two stunning portraits, of brilliant women.
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We did speculate yesterday which one we thought,
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which path we thought, we might follow.
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Yeah, we did.
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And we've got a couple more seconds.
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And if you have already voted,
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pop in the chat what you think the connection might be
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to make Maggie Tabberer for these two women.
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Okay, we're ending the poll and Penny,
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we were wrong.
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Oh wow.
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We are gonna go purse first down the rabbit hole.
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Oh, I think it was the purse first line that
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might've swayed the balance there.
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All right.
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We're going to go down the road of Janice Wakely.
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So let's have a little,
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just to have a little look at this fantastic portrait,
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1959 portrait by Helmut Newton, incredible photographer.
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So Janice Wakely, she came from so, oh,
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actually before we go into who, like where she came from
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and a little bit about her and this portrait
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let's reveal the connection.
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Did anyone have a guess in the chat
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as to what the connection might be?
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Mary thought that they were all models,
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all of the choices.
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That's right, exactly right, Mary that's it.
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So both Janice and Maggie modelled together in Melbourne
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around the same, around the same era.
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Janice was one of, both of them actually,
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were two of the favourite models of photographers,
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Helmut Newton and Henry Talbot,
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who we also have a portrait of in the collection.
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And in fact,
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Janice was, linking to this particular portrait,
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she was deemed the look of 1958.
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So there you go, if you went a little complete keyhole
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insight into what the look of exactly in this year
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was, this captures it.
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It is something I particularly,
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apart from it being an incredibly unusual pose,
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but a very dynamic pose.
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There's a lot of our portraits in the gallery, are very,
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you know, very still, this is a very, very active pose,
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but also it catches what Helmut Newton and Henry Talbot did
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in modernist photography in that era in taking the models,
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outdoors into the Australian streets,
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into the Australian Bush, into some urban landscapes.
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And now that's super familiar,
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that's something that's part and parcel of what it is to do
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publicity and fashion and celebrity photography now.
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But then it was quite revolutionary.
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None of those fiddly,
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those gloves with the fiddly buttons, Penny.
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Is that something that had those gloves that were mentioned
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with the fiddly buttons,
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were they something that was something of the past
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in by this era or...
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00:12:41.689 --> 00:12:45.068
I think they were, they were getting a little bit passe
260
00:12:45.068 --> 00:12:47.511
by this point, your fashion seems to have been,
261
00:12:47.511 --> 00:12:52.428
at least the fashion that Talbot and Newton were featuring.
262
00:12:54.327 --> 00:12:57.523
'Cause remember fashion and fashion photography
263
00:12:57.523 --> 00:12:59.453
is often a little bit ahead
264
00:12:59.453 --> 00:13:02.143
of what people are actually wearing at the time.
265
00:13:02.143 --> 00:13:04.414
And we can see that in fashion through the eras.
266
00:13:04.414 --> 00:13:06.753
So when you're looking at a particular image,
267
00:13:06.753 --> 00:13:10.354
it's more in a way it's almost like looking into the future.
268
00:13:10.354 --> 00:13:13.852
It's almost like it's almost aspirational in a way.
269
00:13:13.852 --> 00:13:17.445
I also really love portraits that are like not only
270
00:13:17.445 --> 00:13:20.506
a moment in time in that person's life,
271
00:13:20.506 --> 00:13:24.961
but also a moment in time in you know, in a street scape.
272
00:13:24.961 --> 00:13:28.360
So you've got that lovely what we would call now,
273
00:13:28.360 --> 00:13:31.290
vintage car behind Janice there,
274
00:13:31.290 --> 00:13:35.610
but it's of her time and of her place then.
275
00:13:35.610 --> 00:13:38.182
So she was, she came from Crookwell,
276
00:13:38.182 --> 00:13:41.698
which is not too far from here in New South Wales,
277
00:13:41.698 --> 00:13:46.188
and started modelling in the 1950s and 60s in Melbourne.
278
00:13:46.188 --> 00:13:48.906
But something to know about Janice
279
00:13:48.906 --> 00:13:51.573
is that she was an entrepreneur.
280
00:13:52.481 --> 00:13:54.469
So in the mid sixties,
281
00:13:54.469 --> 00:13:58.189
she not only started up her own modelling agency,
282
00:13:58.189 --> 00:14:02.981
but also started her own photographic agency as well.
283
00:14:02.981 --> 00:14:07.446
And was an accomplished photographer in her own right.
284
00:14:07.446 --> 00:14:10.229
And actually took several of the portraits
285
00:14:10.229 --> 00:14:12.812
that we hold in the collection.
286
00:14:13.705 --> 00:14:16.993
So, should we have a little look
287
00:14:16.993 --> 00:14:20.675
at where the story of Janice leads us,
288
00:14:20.675 --> 00:14:25.429
from the modelling world of modernist Melbourne to where,
289
00:14:25.429 --> 00:14:29.059
where do we want to go next people?
290
00:14:29.059 --> 00:14:30.330
Hmm.
291
00:14:30.330 --> 00:14:34.497
Hector, should we bring up the next two choices?
292
00:14:37.439 --> 00:14:41.356 line:15%
Now, forgive me while I change my notes around.
293
00:14:43.679 --> 00:14:45.273 line:15%
Two very colourful pictures,
294
00:14:45.273 --> 00:14:48.094 line:15%
after our black and white photograph choices from before.
295
00:14:48.094 --> 00:14:49.344 line:15%
Yeah.
296
00:14:50.286 --> 00:14:52.273 line:15%
So people who know a little bit about Janice,
297
00:14:52.273 --> 00:14:54.358 line:15%
might be able to guess the connection here
298
00:14:54.358 --> 00:14:56.106 line:15%
or anyone that does a quick Google,
299
00:14:56.106 --> 00:14:58.687 line:15%
don't do a quick Google of collection.
300
00:14:58.687 --> 00:14:59.520 line:15%
(laughing)
301
00:14:59.520 --> 00:15:00.549 line:15%
Spoiler alert.
302
00:15:00.549 --> 00:15:02.767 line:15%
So should we, should we go down the road,
303
00:15:02.767 --> 00:15:05.967 line:15%
to Clifton Pugh, a famed Australian portrait artist
304
00:15:05.967 --> 00:15:07.384 line:15%
or Eric McIllree.
305
00:15:08.777 --> 00:15:09.610 line:15%
I'm watching the poll.
306
00:15:09.610 --> 00:15:13.193 line:15%
The Avis Car Rental entrepreneur.
307
00:15:15.561 --> 00:15:17.376 line:15%
What could these two gentlemen
308
00:15:17.376 --> 00:15:19.341 line:15%
have to do with Janice Wakely?
309
00:15:19.341 --> 00:15:23.591 line:15%
Oh, it's like a tight race, neck and neck.
310
00:15:25.795 --> 00:15:30.037 line:15%
I'll give you a couple more seconds to cast your vote.
311
00:15:30.037 --> 00:15:31.893 line:15%
They're two beautiful portraits in any case,
312
00:15:31.893 --> 00:15:35.272 line:15%
so it's nice to enjoy them while everyone's voting.
313
00:15:35.272 --> 00:15:36.873 line:15%
Okay,
314
00:15:36.873 --> 00:15:40.373 line:15%
ending the poll and by a very slim margin,
315
00:15:42.665 --> 00:15:45.426 line:15%
we're going down the Clifton Pugh rabbit hole.
316
00:15:45.426 --> 00:15:47.137 line:15%
Oh, very nice.
317
00:15:47.137 --> 00:15:51.478 line:15%
So this is where I get to cheat because I designed this
318
00:15:51.478 --> 00:15:53.465 line:15%
little web of connections.
319
00:15:53.465 --> 00:15:57.048 line:15%
So I'm the Wizard of Oz behind this journey
320
00:15:58.029 --> 00:15:58.897 line:15%
over the rainbow.
321
00:15:58.897 --> 00:16:01.054 line:15%
(laughing)
322
00:16:01.054 --> 00:16:04.484 line:15%
And it's actually the same connection between these two,
323
00:16:04.484 --> 00:16:05.411 line:15%
two portraits.
324
00:16:05.411 --> 00:16:07.627 line:15%
So interesting that it was neck and neck.
325
00:16:07.627 --> 00:16:09.686 line:15%
So none of you can feel disappointed
326
00:16:09.686 --> 00:16:12.005 line:15%
because you actually get both stories.
327
00:16:12.005 --> 00:16:16.422
So the connection between Janice and Eric and Clifton
328
00:16:19.478 --> 00:16:22.647
is all that they spent some time at
329
00:16:22.647 --> 00:16:24.897
Coonanglebah in Queensland.
330
00:16:26.957 --> 00:16:28.411
So Coonanglebah formally,
331
00:16:28.411 --> 00:16:31.584
you might otherwise know it as Dunk Island,
332
00:16:31.584 --> 00:16:36.251
land of the Bandjin and Djiru people, was their retreat.
333
00:16:37.858 --> 00:16:41.997
He bought the island in the 1960s, Eric McIlree,
334
00:16:41.997 --> 00:16:44.702
shortly before, a few years later,
335
00:16:44.702 --> 00:16:48.610
he married Janice Wakely who became Janice McIlree,
336
00:16:48.610 --> 00:16:51.777
so two entrepreneurs getting together.
337
00:16:52.816 --> 00:16:56.649
So Eric McIlree was the Avis Car Rental giant,
338
00:16:58.927 --> 00:17:03.047
so he got the concession to run Avis Cars in Australia,
339
00:17:03.047 --> 00:17:05.623
which was actually the first cars,
340
00:17:05.623 --> 00:17:09.033
rental cars available at Australian airports.
341
00:17:09.033 --> 00:17:13.592
And the year the portrait you just saw was made,
342
00:17:13.592 --> 00:17:15.925
he rented his millionth car.
343
00:17:16.760 --> 00:17:21.345
So they had this lovely retreat up at Coonanglebah,
344
00:17:21.345 --> 00:17:25.246
and when Eric wanted his portrait painted by Clifton Pugh,
345
00:17:25.246 --> 00:17:28.150
Clifton Pugh, came up to spend some time swimming
346
00:17:28.150 --> 00:17:30.967
and fishing and painting the portrait,
347
00:17:30.967 --> 00:17:34.498
Pugh's well-known to like often said
348
00:17:34.498 --> 00:17:38.081
that he really liked to spend a lot of time
349
00:17:39.103 --> 00:17:40.520
with his sitters.
350
00:17:41.650 --> 00:17:43.471
And that was something that was actually a compulsory
351
00:17:43.471 --> 00:17:47.490
requirement of being painted by Clifton Pugh.
352
00:17:47.490 --> 00:17:50.040
And actually, Hector, just as a bit of background,
353
00:17:50.040 --> 00:17:51.659
would you mind if I muck you up a bit
354
00:17:51.659 --> 00:17:55.539
and just take us back to the McIllree portrait?
355
00:17:55.539 --> 00:17:58.945
Oh, we like setting Hector a challenge.
356
00:17:58.945 --> 00:18:00.112
There we go,
357
00:18:03.613 --> 00:18:06.857
and just enter the one by himself for a second,
358
00:18:06.857 --> 00:18:08.514
just so we can get, yeah.
359
00:18:08.514 --> 00:18:10.490
So this is the finished portrait that we hold in
360
00:18:10.490 --> 00:18:12.166
the Portrait Gallery.
361
00:18:12.166 --> 00:18:14.639
And you'll see the reason I want to show you this
362
00:18:14.639 --> 00:18:15.539
because Hector,
363
00:18:15.539 --> 00:18:19.223
if you click on the snapshot that comes with this portrait,
364
00:18:19.223 --> 00:18:23.723
now this was donated by Janice Wakely, Janice McIlree,
365
00:18:24.987 --> 00:18:26.731
into our collection
366
00:18:26.731 --> 00:18:30.481
and there she is, in 1971 on the right there,
367
00:18:32.765 --> 00:18:36.369
with Clifton Pugh, and the unfinished as that,
368
00:18:36.369 --> 00:18:38.727
at that point unfinished portrait.
369
00:18:38.727 --> 00:18:39.645
I love this,
370
00:18:39.645 --> 00:18:41.448
this is actually one of my favourite parts
371
00:18:41.448 --> 00:18:42.952
of the Portrait Gallery collection.
372
00:18:42.952 --> 00:18:46.105
I think it's possibly because I really love archives,
373
00:18:46.105 --> 00:18:50.322
but generally these there's a whole set of these snapshots
374
00:18:50.322 --> 00:18:54.113
that they took during the making of this portrait.
375
00:18:54.113 --> 00:18:57.056
And one is they're holding up this huge
376
00:18:57.056 --> 00:19:00.338
sailfish that they've just caught.
377
00:19:00.338 --> 00:19:03.890
And there's a whole lot of pictures of Pugh painting
378
00:19:03.890 --> 00:19:05.716
in his red Speedos as well,
379
00:19:05.716 --> 00:19:08.738
which I'm not sharing with you today because you can enjoy
380
00:19:08.738 --> 00:19:10.304
them on our website.
381
00:19:10.304 --> 00:19:14.412
And it's really, it's quite unusual to have such a,
382
00:19:14.412 --> 00:19:17.812
such a sort of complete record of,
383
00:19:17.812 --> 00:19:21.452
of the process of making a portrait.
384
00:19:21.452 --> 00:19:22.285
So yeah,
385
00:19:22.285 --> 00:19:24.383
that's the connection between Clifton Pugh
386
00:19:24.383 --> 00:19:27.163
and Janice Wakely, they spent some time together
387
00:19:27.163 --> 00:19:31.080
while her husband's portrait was being painted.
388
00:19:33.942 --> 00:19:37.414
It looks as though they may have enjoyed,
389
00:19:37.414 --> 00:19:39.311
Eric May have been having a few cigars
390
00:19:39.311 --> 00:19:42.727
and Clifton might've been smoking on his pipe there
391
00:19:42.727 --> 00:19:45.302
whilst those portraits were being painted.
392
00:19:45.302 --> 00:19:46.262
Yes indeed,
393
00:19:46.262 --> 00:19:48.754
and I quite like weirdly in some of the snapshots
394
00:19:48.754 --> 00:19:53.337
they seem to swap, but that's, you know, yeah, they do.
395
00:19:56.078 --> 00:19:58.618
It sounds like they had a pretty, pretty relaxed time,
396
00:19:58.618 --> 00:20:03.368
which by all accounts is how Clifton Pugh liked to paint.
397
00:20:05.613 --> 00:20:09.421
Now, just to have a little bit closer look at this portrait
398
00:20:09.421 --> 00:20:12.254
of Clifton Pugh, by Fred Williams.
399
00:20:14.068 --> 00:20:16.334 line:15%
Hector, just actually I might,
400
00:20:16.334 --> 00:20:19.313 line:15%
have a little look at this fantastic portrait
401
00:20:19.313 --> 00:20:23.813 line:15%
and I'll just bring it up, Clifton into my study here,
402
00:20:26.004 --> 00:20:26.921 line:15%
here he is.
403
00:20:32.790 --> 00:20:35.970
So, so there's something really,
404
00:20:35.970 --> 00:20:39.647
truly delightful about this portrait and it's not just that
405
00:20:39.647 --> 00:20:42.548
Fred Williams is very much better known
406
00:20:42.548 --> 00:20:44.798
for his landscape paintings
407
00:20:46.183 --> 00:20:50.111
and that this is a portrait of a fellow artist
408
00:20:50.111 --> 00:20:52.319
and we have a lot of those in the collection,
409
00:20:52.319 --> 00:20:53.653
but I love particularly,
410
00:20:53.653 --> 00:20:57.764
I love like the way that you are drawn into the portrait
411
00:20:57.764 --> 00:21:00.660
through the artist's work.
412
00:21:00.660 --> 00:21:03.459
And because there, there's a natural images as well,
413
00:21:03.459 --> 00:21:04.472
there's this lovely connection
414
00:21:04.472 --> 00:21:06.661
to Fred Williams work as well.
415
00:21:06.661 --> 00:21:10.885
And there's that really nice sense of Pugh sort of
416
00:21:10.885 --> 00:21:14.968
just being interrupted in the middle of his work.
417
00:21:16.253 --> 00:21:19.199
You can see that almost like that lovely movement
418
00:21:19.199 --> 00:21:24.053
out of concentration into a consciousness of a viewer,
419
00:21:24.053 --> 00:21:25.393
which is quite, you know,
420
00:21:25.393 --> 00:21:28.401
given the the process of making an oil painting
421
00:21:28.401 --> 00:21:31.106
like this to get that kind of spontaneity,
422
00:21:31.106 --> 00:21:32.414
is really exciting
423
00:21:32.414 --> 00:21:35.002
and that beautiful negative space of the window
424
00:21:35.002 --> 00:21:37.674
that really you can see the light shining through.
425
00:21:37.674 --> 00:21:39.952
And again, so there's so much of
426
00:21:39.952 --> 00:21:41.680
Fred Williams landscape painting that
427
00:21:41.680 --> 00:21:45.430
actually you can see in this portrait of Pugh
428
00:21:46.272 --> 00:21:50.684
and now to position Pugh in time in this portrait
429
00:21:50.684 --> 00:21:51.653
is quite interesting because
430
00:21:51.653 --> 00:21:56.153
he'd won the Archibald a few times early in the 1970s.
431
00:21:57.781 --> 00:22:00.829
So this portrait was from 1974
432
00:22:00.829 --> 00:22:04.022
and we're thinking also let's position him
433
00:22:04.022 --> 00:22:05.288
in the Whitlam era.
434
00:22:05.288 --> 00:22:08.246
So he got appointed to the Australia council,
435
00:22:08.246 --> 00:22:13.246
about this year, left the Australia council the next year.
436
00:22:13.655 --> 00:22:16.198
And it's funny because someone that's sort of,
437
00:22:16.198 --> 00:22:18.955
witley described him as the court painter
438
00:22:18.955 --> 00:22:20.824
to the Australian labour party,
439
00:22:20.824 --> 00:22:22.019
which I think is a little cool
440
00:22:22.019 --> 00:22:25.648
because he did do portraits of a lot of politicians
441
00:22:25.648 --> 00:22:28.747
who were from both sides of politics.
442
00:22:28.747 --> 00:22:31.445
That he also talks around this era
443
00:22:31.445 --> 00:22:34.473
in a really fantastic oral history that he did
444
00:22:34.473 --> 00:22:35.922
with Barbara Blackman,
445
00:22:35.922 --> 00:22:38.012
that's held in the National Library collection.
446
00:22:38.012 --> 00:22:40.446
I would very much recommend people have a little
447
00:22:40.446 --> 00:22:41.696
listen to that,
448
00:22:42.633 --> 00:22:46.183
very easy to search for on the National Library catalogue.
449
00:22:46.183 --> 00:22:49.078
But he talks about trying to join the communist party
450
00:22:49.078 --> 00:22:53.584
at a certain point but being too much of a troublemaker
451
00:22:53.584 --> 00:22:54.683
and not being allowed.
452
00:22:54.683 --> 00:22:57.824
So you sort of positioned him into this,
453
00:22:57.824 --> 00:23:02.771
into these political, politically into this era as well,
454
00:23:02.771 --> 00:23:04.927
which is interesting to think of that at the same time as
455
00:23:04.927 --> 00:23:08.240
him painting the portrait of someone like Eric McIlree,
456
00:23:08.240 --> 00:23:12.777
who was, you know, very much that Australian businessmen,
457
00:23:12.777 --> 00:23:16.277
you know, success story entrepreneur type.
458
00:23:17.207 --> 00:23:18.040
Actually,
459
00:23:18.040 --> 00:23:20.932
I just thought of another connection between them as well,
460
00:23:20.932 --> 00:23:23.811
with in terms of like the communist Russian connection,
461
00:23:23.811 --> 00:23:28.733
because weirdly back in the 1940s when he was flying planes,
462
00:23:28.733 --> 00:23:30.594
transporting planes around the world,
463
00:23:30.594 --> 00:23:32.790
as one of his earlier occupations.
464
00:23:32.790 --> 00:23:37.472
Eric McIlree actually got arrested as a Russian spy
465
00:23:37.472 --> 00:23:39.332
because he was flying over the wrong, by British forces
466
00:23:39.332 --> 00:23:40.223
because he was flying over the wrong parts of Europe
467
00:23:40.223 --> 00:23:44.056
in the late forties, had accidentally strayed,
468
00:23:45.123 --> 00:23:48.785
got lost and strayed into the Russian zone.
469
00:23:48.785 --> 00:23:49.721
But yeah, that's that,
470
00:23:49.721 --> 00:23:51.769
see there's one of those trove rabbit holes
471
00:23:51.769 --> 00:23:52.711
that I went down.
472
00:23:52.711 --> 00:23:54.227
(Gill laughing)
473
00:23:54.227 --> 00:23:55.886
But yeah, I mean, maybe we should,
474
00:23:55.886 --> 00:23:58.697
we should leave this little group in Coonanglebah
475
00:23:58.697 --> 00:24:02.947
in the 1970s and see where the story takes us next.
476
00:24:04.031 --> 00:24:06.646
So, we're following the Clifton Pugh pathway.
477
00:24:06.646 --> 00:24:08.688
So we're following the Clifton Pugh pathway.
478
00:24:08.688 --> 00:24:10.390
Awesome.
479
00:24:10.390 --> 00:24:13.474
So what two portraits do we have next?
480
00:24:13.474 --> 00:24:14.307
Ooh.
481
00:24:18.841 --> 00:24:21.851 line:15%
So you've got Barry Humphries,
482
00:24:21.851 --> 00:24:23.943 line:15%
famed Australian performer,
483
00:24:23.943 --> 00:24:27.693 line:15%
and Alan Marshall, claimed Australian writer.
484
00:24:29.107 --> 00:24:30.881 line:15%
People might be able to very readily guess
485
00:24:30.881 --> 00:24:35.548 line:15%
what the connection is between Barry Humphries and Pugh.
486
00:24:36.389 --> 00:24:38.291 line:15%
Well, let's launch our poll
487
00:24:38.291 --> 00:24:40.514 line:15%
and we'll see which path we take
488
00:24:40.514 --> 00:24:43.014 line:15%
It's neck and neck.
489
00:24:45.141 --> 00:24:48.274 line:15%
Well it's close again.
490
00:24:48.274 --> 00:24:51.191 line:15%
54, 46 to Alan Marshall.
491
00:24:52.641 --> 00:24:54.343 line:15%
Okay we'll end the poll.
492
00:24:54.343 --> 00:24:55.898 line:15%
It's actually lovely to be able to sit
493
00:24:55.898 --> 00:24:59.391 line:15%
and just enjoy some portraits side by side
494
00:24:59.391 --> 00:25:02.779 line:15%
that we often wouldn't see hanging side by side
495
00:25:02.779 --> 00:25:04.029 line:15%
in the gallery.
496
00:25:07.007 --> 00:25:08.952 line:15%
All right and so we are following
497
00:25:08.952 --> 00:25:10.596 line:15%
the Alan Marshall path.
498
00:25:10.596 --> 00:25:12.705 line:15%
Ah, I thought we might follow
499
00:25:12.705 --> 00:25:14.867 line:15%
the Alan Marshall path, thank you everyone.
500
00:25:14.867 --> 00:25:16.661 line:15%
Such a great portrait though, isn't it?
501
00:25:16.661 --> 00:25:19.203 line:15%
It is a fantastic, fantastic portrait
502
00:25:19.203 --> 00:25:20.703 line:15%
by Noel Counihan.
503
00:25:22.503 --> 00:25:26.412 line:15%
I'm just going to pull them up behind me as well.
504
00:25:26.412 --> 00:25:30.048 line:15%
So let's have a little look at this portrait
505
00:25:30.048 --> 00:25:34.239 line:15%
and also if you have any favourite Alan Marshall books,
506
00:25:34.239 --> 00:25:35.810 line:15%
please put them into the chat.
507
00:25:35.810 --> 00:25:39.099 line:15%
Of course, the most famous of which that, you know,
508
00:25:39.099 --> 00:25:42.682 line:15%
lives on as an Australian classic, in fact,
509
00:25:43.516 --> 00:25:47.599
probably worldwide classic is I Can Jump Puddles.
510
00:25:48.650 --> 00:25:52.224
Something that's really beautiful about this portrait is the
511
00:25:52.224 --> 00:25:57.224
it's so understated and it's so intimate at the same time,
512
00:25:57.284 --> 00:26:00.303
and I'm just going to step to the side of it
513
00:26:00.303 --> 00:26:02.859
so I'm not in front of it here.
514
00:26:02.859 --> 00:26:06.066
It's a few steps left in my study,
515
00:26:06.066 --> 00:26:10.566
but you can just see his crutches underneath his arms.
516
00:26:12.335 --> 00:26:14.110
And you have that beautiful eye,
517
00:26:14.110 --> 00:26:18.415
I'm always really interested in portraits of writers
518
00:26:18.415 --> 00:26:19.645
because how do you,
519
00:26:19.645 --> 00:26:21.696
if you're capturing sort of the personality
520
00:26:21.696 --> 00:26:24.503
and the life's achievements of an individual,
521
00:26:24.503 --> 00:26:25.919
that's kind of, you know,
522
00:26:25.919 --> 00:26:28.581
Maggie Tabberer, you know, it's all there,
523
00:26:28.581 --> 00:26:30.328
that was how she's identified.
524
00:26:30.328 --> 00:26:34.779
A writer, often people don't know what they look like.
525
00:26:34.779 --> 00:26:36.284
Often their engagement with them
526
00:26:36.284 --> 00:26:38.702
is it totally different world.
527
00:26:38.702 --> 00:26:42.968
And how do you capture all of that creative force
528
00:26:42.968 --> 00:26:43.801
in a portrait?
529
00:26:43.801 --> 00:26:47.270
And I think that Noel has done that incredibly well
530
00:26:47.270 --> 00:26:48.561
in this portrait.
531
00:26:48.561 --> 00:26:51.601
There's a huge amount of movement and dynamism
532
00:26:51.601 --> 00:26:54.216
and the fantastic contrast in colours
533
00:26:54.216 --> 00:26:57.133
and the full engagement of his face
534
00:26:58.968 --> 00:27:01.296
that seems to be just mid conversation,
535
00:27:01.296 --> 00:27:03.051
mid having a, you know,
536
00:27:03.051 --> 00:27:06.968
mid saying something to someone over there
537
00:27:06.968 --> 00:27:09.301
on like on his, on his left.
538
00:27:11.543 --> 00:27:12.893
It's a really, I, you know,
539
00:27:12.893 --> 00:27:16.127
I've always particularly loved this portrait
540
00:27:16.127 --> 00:27:18.554
as one of our sort of superlative portraits
541
00:27:18.554 --> 00:27:20.371
of Alan Marshall in the collection.
542
00:27:20.371 --> 00:27:22.934
Have we got any favourite Alan Marshall works,
543
00:27:22.934 --> 00:27:24.951
people who are fans of I Can Jump Puddles
544
00:27:24.951 --> 00:27:27.210
there in the chat too?
545
00:27:27.210 --> 00:27:30.551
No, not yet people we had prior
546
00:27:30.551 --> 00:27:32.062
to the previous poll.
547
00:27:32.062 --> 00:27:34.269
We had people commenting that the Barry Humphries is one of
548
00:27:34.269 --> 00:27:37.439
their favourite portraits, but I,
549
00:27:37.439 --> 00:27:40.317
I adore the way when you first look at this,
550
00:27:40.317 --> 00:27:42.174
those crutches could be, you know,
551
00:27:42.174 --> 00:27:45.052
a design on a shirt or any other kind of thing,
552
00:27:45.052 --> 00:27:48.492
but it's the delightful way the artist has captured
553
00:27:48.492 --> 00:27:51.536
that pushup of the shoulders that crutches give you.
554
00:27:51.536 --> 00:27:53.023
I mean, they couldn't be anything else,
555
00:27:53.023 --> 00:27:54.099
could they really, they,
556
00:27:54.099 --> 00:27:57.281
the way his posture has been changed
557
00:27:57.281 --> 00:27:59.031
by the fact that he's got little wooden struts
558
00:27:59.031 --> 00:28:03.649
underneath each armpit is just so magnificent.
559
00:28:03.649 --> 00:28:05.664
Absolutely, absolutely.
560
00:28:05.664 --> 00:28:08.515
So what's the connection between Alan Marshall
561
00:28:08.515 --> 00:28:09.932
and Clifton Pugh?
562
00:28:12.438 --> 00:28:13.885
Has anyone guessed that?
563
00:28:13.885 --> 00:28:15.276
No I think you're going to have to...
564
00:28:15.276 --> 00:28:17.040
It's actually, quite a nice one.
565
00:28:17.040 --> 00:28:18.842
So the connection is,
566
00:28:18.842 --> 00:28:21.050
it's also quite a simple one that,
567
00:28:21.050 --> 00:28:24.208
so the connection is the Eltham artist's colony
568
00:28:24.208 --> 00:28:25.118
in Melbourne.
569
00:28:25.118 --> 00:28:28.124
So Alan Marshall wrote from there for a good number of years
570
00:28:28.124 --> 00:28:30.859
and Clifton Pugh also worked there
571
00:28:30.859 --> 00:28:34.232
and was kind of part of that artists circles that gathered
572
00:28:34.232 --> 00:28:39.136
around that particular area in Victoria for some time.
573
00:28:39.136 --> 00:28:41.685
I don't know if they ever ran into each other,
574
00:28:41.685 --> 00:28:43.458
actually they do run into each other because that's
575
00:28:43.458 --> 00:28:48.458
something else that Clifton mentions in his autobiography.
576
00:28:48.941 --> 00:28:52.332
I would love to actually read you a little bit about
577
00:28:52.332 --> 00:28:55.456
Alan Marshall and by Alan Marshall.
578
00:28:55.456 --> 00:28:57.846
Because something that,
579
00:28:57.846 --> 00:28:59.608
something that I find quite interesting
580
00:28:59.608 --> 00:29:03.575
is sort of how writers get their start.
581
00:29:03.575 --> 00:29:07.245
And he entered a number of short story competitions
582
00:29:07.245 --> 00:29:10.662
in the late 1930s when he was quite young
583
00:29:12.417 --> 00:29:15.084
and he won, like he won several,
584
00:29:16.151 --> 00:29:20.603
one of them was the Smith's Weekly Short Story prize
585
00:29:20.603 --> 00:29:21.436
in 1939.
586
00:29:24.461 --> 00:29:26.482
And he wrote to Smith's Weekly,
587
00:29:26.482 --> 00:29:28.913
Smith's Weekly to thank them.
588
00:29:28.913 --> 00:29:30.079
And this is another,
589
00:29:30.079 --> 00:29:32.667
this is another trove rabbit hole I went down.
590
00:29:32.667 --> 00:29:34.105
So please indulge me with this,
591
00:29:34.105 --> 00:29:36.780
but also think of this lovely,
592
00:29:36.780 --> 00:29:39.586
lovely man writing the scene as a young man,
593
00:29:39.586 --> 00:29:41.798
"Dear Smith's thanks for check..."
594
00:29:41.798 --> 00:29:43.660
It was a hundred pounds by the way
595
00:29:43.660 --> 00:29:47.272
"It came when most needed and will enable me to continue
596
00:29:47.272 --> 00:29:52.272
writing, a career, which I had decided I would have to drop.
597
00:29:52.358 --> 00:29:54.876
I can now carry on and feel that with the help of
598
00:29:54.876 --> 00:29:57.293
this money, I will make good.
599
00:29:59.146 --> 00:30:01.813
Yours sincerely, Alan Marshall."
600
00:30:03.060 --> 00:30:06.263
And there's more because they actually published a bit of an
601
00:30:06.263 --> 00:30:10.328
article about the winners of the short story prizes in 1939.
602
00:30:10.328 --> 00:30:14.200
And they do mention the reason that Alan Marshall lost a
603
00:30:14.200 --> 00:30:17.549
lot of his mobility when he contracted polio
604
00:30:17.549 --> 00:30:19.400
when he was six years old.
605
00:30:19.400 --> 00:30:23.855
And so most of his life, he spent with these two crutches,
606
00:30:23.855 --> 00:30:27.041
which even in 1939, they say,
607
00:30:27.041 --> 00:30:29.710
"he is quite an affection through his two crutches,
608
00:30:29.710 --> 00:30:32.255
which he calls Isabel and Horace".
609
00:30:32.255 --> 00:30:33.088
So there you go,
610
00:30:33.088 --> 00:30:35.296
this is actually a triple portrait.
611
00:30:35.296 --> 00:30:38.393
I'm not sure if he still called them Isabel and Horace,
612
00:30:38.393 --> 00:30:42.137
by the time this portrait was made.
613
00:30:42.137 --> 00:30:43.978
And they talk about him learning to ride a horse
614
00:30:43.978 --> 00:30:45.999
and drive a car and swim
615
00:30:45.999 --> 00:30:48.940
and "almost every week with Horace and Isabel,
616
00:30:48.940 --> 00:30:51.317
he roams with other hikers through the ranges
617
00:30:51.317 --> 00:30:53.234
surrounding Melbourne".
618
00:30:54.446 --> 00:30:55.576
Now I'd love to,
619
00:30:55.576 --> 00:30:58.312
that's a few things that people wrote about him,
620
00:30:58.312 --> 00:31:00.744
but I'm also always interested
621
00:31:00.744 --> 00:31:04.514
to hear the words of the people themselves.
622
00:31:04.514 --> 00:31:05.502
And I think that's,
623
00:31:05.502 --> 00:31:08.903
it's something that you can experience yourself without,
624
00:31:08.903 --> 00:31:12.653
in their own words, app and website addition.
625
00:31:15.475 --> 00:31:19.725
So I would very much encourage you to support that
626
00:31:20.797 --> 00:31:24.443
and have that experience with hearing the portraits speak.
627
00:31:24.443 --> 00:31:25.876
But this is,
628
00:31:25.876 --> 00:31:30.876
this is a lovely quote that I've found from actually through
629
00:31:31.339 --> 00:31:34.673
research done for the Australians,
630
00:31:34.673 --> 00:31:37.756
the ABC books in the writing programme.
631
00:31:39.117 --> 00:31:42.700
So this is actually a talk he gave to kids.
632
00:31:43.987 --> 00:31:47.755
And this is what he told a group of kids
633
00:31:47.755 --> 00:31:52.172
who were budding writes about his process of writing.
634
00:31:53.682 --> 00:31:57.554
"I began by making a list of peaks in an exercise book.
635
00:31:57.554 --> 00:32:01.516
They were the experiences that I felt influenced us greatly
636
00:32:01.516 --> 00:32:04.896
and had some effect on our character, and on our lives.
637
00:32:04.896 --> 00:32:08.734
I numbered them all, I'd write in an exercise book.
638
00:32:08.734 --> 00:32:11.002
Number one, describe Joe bringing me water
639
00:32:11.002 --> 00:32:12.494
to the dying horse.
640
00:32:12.494 --> 00:32:15.642
Two, the time Joe lost his trousers when we were fishing.
641
00:32:15.642 --> 00:32:17.849
Three, a fight I had with Stits.
642
00:32:17.849 --> 00:32:21.663
Four, the first ride I had on a pony.
643
00:32:21.663 --> 00:32:25.296
Five, falling in love with Maggie McMellon and so on.
644
00:32:25.296 --> 00:32:28.333
And that was the way I did it until there was quite a long
645
00:32:28.333 --> 00:32:30.916
list of peaks, pages and pages.
646
00:32:31.876 --> 00:32:34.313
I think I wrote down about 80 peaks,
647
00:32:34.313 --> 00:32:36.491
and then I arranged them in the order in which they
648
00:32:36.491 --> 00:32:38.108
happened,
649
00:32:38.108 --> 00:32:40.564
but sometimes to make the book more interesting,
650
00:32:40.564 --> 00:32:43.020
I had to alter the order
651
00:32:43.020 --> 00:32:44.774
and after I'd arranged them in the order in which
652
00:32:44.774 --> 00:32:47.311
I thought that would be most effective in the book,
653
00:32:47.311 --> 00:32:48.894
I began writing it.
654
00:32:50.077 --> 00:32:52.572
So I Can Jump Puddles is really a description
655
00:32:52.572 --> 00:32:55.082
of all those things that happened in my childhood
656
00:32:55.082 --> 00:32:57.077
that I will never forget.
657
00:32:57.077 --> 00:33:00.861
Today, you are living a life that is full of peaks.
658
00:33:00.861 --> 00:33:04.133
I hope you do not feel like you are living a dull life.
659
00:33:04.133 --> 00:33:07.640
You're not, you have schoolmates, as I did,
660
00:33:07.640 --> 00:33:08.885
and they're interesting.
661
00:33:08.885 --> 00:33:10.336
You'll never forget them.
662
00:33:10.336 --> 00:33:12.991
The talks you had with them, although you may not know it,
663
00:33:12.991 --> 00:33:15.952
are really the stuff of literature.
664
00:33:15.952 --> 00:33:19.556
You're living a book that someday you may write
665
00:33:19.556 --> 00:33:21.543
and the people reading it will say
666
00:33:21.543 --> 00:33:25.297
"what an interesting life this writer has led"
667
00:33:25.297 --> 00:33:29.547
and it is interesting because you have made it so."
668
00:33:39.774 --> 00:33:42.767
Isn't it lovely to hear that written?
669
00:33:42.767 --> 00:33:44.391
It's just quite a,
670
00:33:44.391 --> 00:33:48.641
I think it's quite a evocative thing to think about
671
00:33:50.423 --> 00:33:54.759
this writer, reflecting back on creating that sort of,
672
00:33:54.759 --> 00:33:58.842
you know, immortal work in Australian literature.
673
00:34:01.116 --> 00:34:04.831
And I don't know how we're going to time has,
674
00:34:04.831 --> 00:34:05.779
what do you reckon, Gill?
675
00:34:05.779 --> 00:34:09.382
Should we go back and explore one of the other avenues?
676
00:34:09.382 --> 00:34:11.225
Yeah, I think so, why not?
677
00:34:11.225 --> 00:34:14.776
We've still got at least another, you know, oh,
678
00:34:14.776 --> 00:34:16.191
over 10 minutes.
679
00:34:16.191 --> 00:34:18.587
So I reckon we can go and explore some of the other
680
00:34:18.587 --> 00:34:20.318
connections that you've got.
681
00:34:20.318 --> 00:34:22.491
Do you have, did you have any preferences, Penny,
682
00:34:22.491 --> 00:34:24.681
for ones stories that you unearthed
683
00:34:24.681 --> 00:34:27.549
that we didn't take the pathway down?
684
00:34:27.549 --> 00:34:28.549
Well look,
685
00:34:29.447 --> 00:34:31.065
why don't we go back to the beginning
686
00:34:31.065 --> 00:34:33.032
and go down the Jeanne Little path.
687
00:34:33.032 --> 00:34:33.865
Why not?
688
00:34:33.865 --> 00:34:36.485
I could look at that Jeanne little photo all day.
689
00:34:36.485 --> 00:34:37.900
(laughing)
690
00:34:37.900 --> 00:34:40.866
I'll bring her up on my study screen too.
691
00:34:40.866 --> 00:34:41.820
Here we go.
692
00:34:41.820 --> 00:34:43.070
There she is.
693
00:34:45.831 --> 00:34:48.081
(laughing)
694
00:34:50.292 --> 00:34:51.597 line:15%
It's good to go down this path
695
00:34:51.597 --> 00:34:54.207 line:15%
'Cause we can avoid me having to talk about Errol Flynn,
696
00:34:54.207 --> 00:34:58.290 line:15%
who is one of the other choices you've gone down.
697
00:35:01.908 --> 00:35:05.382 line:15%
Isn't this a fantastic portrait?
698
00:35:05.382 --> 00:35:08.215 line:15%
So by Robin Sellick taken in 1995.
699
00:35:09.987 --> 00:35:14.587 line:15%
Now maybe a whole lot of you are much more familiar
700
00:35:14.587 --> 00:35:17.670 line:15%
with Jeanne Little's work, than I am.
701
00:35:18.563 --> 00:35:22.248
So I'm just going to switch my notes over.
702
00:35:22.248 --> 00:35:24.856
One of the things that I did not realise was going to be
703
00:35:24.856 --> 00:35:28.206
useful, so I used to be a lawyer,
704
00:35:28.206 --> 00:35:30.149
and so I had to study for law exams
705
00:35:30.149 --> 00:35:32.191
and I had a particular way of doing it.
706
00:35:32.191 --> 00:35:35.930
And I did not realise that would be a transferrable skill
707
00:35:35.930 --> 00:35:39.047
to preparing for programmes at the Portrait Gallery
708
00:35:39.047 --> 00:35:40.836
when I changed career.
709
00:35:40.836 --> 00:35:43.540
I'll give you a little sneak peek at my notes.
710
00:35:43.540 --> 00:35:46.484
These are workings of Penny's brain.
711
00:35:46.484 --> 00:35:50.751
Yes, that's exactly how I used to study for exams.
712
00:35:50.751 --> 00:35:55.751
I can still do it quite reassuring after 20 something years.
713
00:35:55.945 --> 00:36:00.195
So Jeanne Little, oh, this is photographed in 1994,
714
00:36:01.494 --> 00:36:05.249
so star of Australian television, can anyone guess what
715
00:36:05.249 --> 00:36:08.140
her connection, let's go back to Maggie Tabberer.
716
00:36:08.140 --> 00:36:10.542
What would have her connection been to Maggie Tabberer?
717
00:36:10.542 --> 00:36:12.544
Does anyone know?
718
00:36:12.544 --> 00:36:16.263
People familiar with television of a certain era
719
00:36:16.263 --> 00:36:17.869
would definitely be able to guess,
720
00:36:17.869 --> 00:36:20.837
are there any guesses Gill?
721
00:36:20.837 --> 00:36:23.358
No, not yet, but our darling Matt has said,
722
00:36:23.358 --> 00:36:25.213
it's a portrait you can hear.
723
00:36:25.213 --> 00:36:26.705
(laughing)
724
00:36:26.705 --> 00:36:28.860
It absolutely is a portrait you can hear
725
00:36:28.860 --> 00:36:30.893
and that is super important.
726
00:36:30.893 --> 00:36:31.829
Oh, hang on,
727
00:36:31.829 --> 00:36:33.673
all of the answers are coming through now, sorry.
728
00:36:33.673 --> 00:36:34.620
Ah yes, well done.
729
00:36:34.620 --> 00:36:36.154
I can see Beauty and the Beast there.
730
00:36:36.154 --> 00:36:36.987
Yup.
731
00:36:36.987 --> 00:36:37.996
Good job.
732
00:36:37.996 --> 00:36:40.556
Good job anyone who's thinking of Beauty and the Beast.
733
00:36:40.556 --> 00:36:43.607
So this is not a television programme I was familiar with.
734
00:36:43.607 --> 00:36:44.820
I, yeah,
735
00:36:44.820 --> 00:36:46.629
I wasn't allowed to watch commercial television
736
00:36:46.629 --> 00:36:47.836
when I was growing up.
737
00:36:47.836 --> 00:36:50.403
So I was completely unfamiliar with Jeanne Little
738
00:36:50.403 --> 00:36:52.532
and if anyone else is in that position,
739
00:36:52.532 --> 00:36:55.452
I would highly recommend our colleagues
740
00:36:55.452 --> 00:36:57.854
over at the National Film and Sound archive,
741
00:36:57.854 --> 00:37:02.002
have put together an absolutely stellar primer,
742
00:37:02.002 --> 00:37:06.661
on Jeanne Little including many hilarious clips.
743
00:37:06.661 --> 00:37:11.241
And I really encourage you to click on the one,
744
00:37:11.241 --> 00:37:14.991
that's her explaining how the teleport works,
745
00:37:15.929 --> 00:37:19.537
just a hot tip there for some afternoon rabbit hole
746
00:37:19.537 --> 00:37:20.537
exploration.
747
00:37:21.734 --> 00:37:26.038
So this portrait of Jeanne Little by Robin Sellick,
748
00:37:26.038 --> 00:37:30.329
it actually really captures to me the art of
749
00:37:30.329 --> 00:37:33.996
of capturing a personality in a still image.
750
00:37:34.979 --> 00:37:39.979
So she was such a dynamic, you know, raw explosive force.
751
00:37:40.070 --> 00:37:42.897
And I think we use the word zany, you know, labelled here,
752
00:37:42.897 --> 00:37:45.100
and I think there are few people to whom
753
00:37:45.100 --> 00:37:48.420
that could apply more accurately than Jeanne Little.
754
00:37:48.420 --> 00:37:52.852
That and that, since Matt said, like, as Matt said,
755
00:37:52.852 --> 00:37:57.519
that sense of hearing her, like trademark voice,
756
00:37:57.519 --> 00:38:01.029
that has had such an influence on Australian comedy
757
00:38:01.029 --> 00:38:03.623
is so palpable in this portrait.
758
00:38:03.623 --> 00:38:06.623
It just captures her so beautifully.
759
00:38:09.025 --> 00:38:11.337
Around the time that this portrait was made,
760
00:38:11.337 --> 00:38:13.034
so the same year,
761
00:38:13.034 --> 00:38:16.730
just to give you a taste of her who kind of irv,
762
00:38:16.730 --> 00:38:19.390
she was on Good Morning Australia with Bert Newton,
763
00:38:19.390 --> 00:38:23.721
and part of a item about wrapping Christmas presents.
764
00:38:23.721 --> 00:38:26.959
And she dressed herself entirely in wrapping paper,
765
00:38:26.959 --> 00:38:29.872
probably to the huge horror of the sound department,
766
00:38:29.872 --> 00:38:31.213
Good Morning Australia.
767
00:38:31.213 --> 00:38:35.794
But she appeased in these self-made couture gown
768
00:38:35.794 --> 00:38:37.425
made of wrapping paper.
769
00:38:37.425 --> 00:38:39.806
So just imagine that the same, you know,
770
00:38:39.806 --> 00:38:42.197
that's the personality that you're capturing
771
00:38:42.197 --> 00:38:47.114
in this portrait taken in her Paddington house living room.
772
00:38:49.588 --> 00:38:54.025
So she became, she won a Gold Logie, shared with Don Lane,
773
00:38:54.025 --> 00:38:56.276
in the mid 1970's.
774
00:38:56.276 --> 00:38:59.935
she became the highest paid woman on Australian television.
775
00:38:59.935 --> 00:39:03.620
One of those very famous roles is on Beauty and the Beast
776
00:39:03.620 --> 00:39:04.916
and also the Mike Walsh Show,
777
00:39:04.916 --> 00:39:09.501
that was what she was most famous for for a long time.
778
00:39:09.501 --> 00:39:11.558
For anyone that doesn't know what Beauty and the Beast is,
779
00:39:11.558 --> 00:39:13.378
because I didn't,
780
00:39:13.378 --> 00:39:18.348
so the beast was a male host who would receive questions
781
00:39:18.348 --> 00:39:23.348
from the public like personal issues, relationship issues,
782
00:39:23.457 --> 00:39:26.284
work issues, that kind of thing, like a sort of self-help,
783
00:39:26.284 --> 00:39:28.701
you know, kind of department.
784
00:39:30.600 --> 00:39:34.041
And he would pose these questions to the panel
785
00:39:34.041 --> 00:39:35.498
who were the beauties.
786
00:39:35.498 --> 00:39:38.711
So Jeanne were among, Maggie Tabberer were among the cast
787
00:39:38.711 --> 00:39:42.604
of the beauties on the panel who answered these questions
788
00:39:42.604 --> 00:39:43.937
for the viewers.
789
00:39:45.198 --> 00:39:46.139
And interestingly,
790
00:39:46.139 --> 00:39:48.709
the concept started in 1964
791
00:39:48.709 --> 00:39:51.531
and went you know, almost like survived
792
00:39:51.531 --> 00:39:54.823
in multiple iterations into the early two thousands.
793
00:39:54.823 --> 00:39:56.950
And Maggie describes the experience as
794
00:39:56.950 --> 00:39:58.121
"working our butts off".
795
00:39:58.121 --> 00:40:02.492
So it was, it was pretty, pretty hard work television,
796
00:40:02.492 --> 00:40:06.159
but incredibly popular and won a of acclaim.
797
00:40:08.690 --> 00:40:10.063
So let's talk about,
798
00:40:10.063 --> 00:40:13.485
let's go back to that observation that Matt made actually,
799
00:40:13.485 --> 00:40:18.037
about Jeanne's voice because it was very stinky
800
00:40:18.037 --> 00:40:21.495
and actually there were two elements that were,
801
00:40:21.495 --> 00:40:23.504
that went into the making of that voice,
802
00:40:23.504 --> 00:40:25.718
which I was completely unaware of.
803
00:40:25.718 --> 00:40:30.718
So one, she had a childhood encounter with diptheria,
804
00:40:30.781 --> 00:40:34.864
which she survived, but it hurt her vocal chords.
805
00:40:35.984 --> 00:40:38.224
And that's sort of where you can,
806
00:40:38.224 --> 00:40:40.650
you can sort of hear that difference in her vocal chords
807
00:40:40.650 --> 00:40:41.794
in her voice.
808
00:40:41.794 --> 00:40:46.211
She also had a stutter that she worked really hard to
809
00:40:48.810 --> 00:40:50.745
work out of her voice.
810
00:40:50.745 --> 00:40:53.280
That there's a distinctive droll in her,
811
00:40:53.280 --> 00:40:54.417
in her voice as well.
812
00:40:54.417 --> 00:40:58.394
So that that iconic sound of Australian television
813
00:40:58.394 --> 00:41:02.802
for so many, so many years is like made up of these,
814
00:41:02.802 --> 00:41:04.852
these little things that happen through her,
815
00:41:04.852 --> 00:41:06.269
through her life.
816
00:41:08.540 --> 00:41:11.049
Have we gotten any recollections of watching Jeanne Little
817
00:41:11.049 --> 00:41:14.230
or any fans in the audience Gill?
818
00:41:14.230 --> 00:41:15.063
Yeah.
819
00:41:15.063 --> 00:41:19.447
Matt used to watch it when he was home sick from school
820
00:41:19.447 --> 00:41:21.203
and somebody else, let me see.
821
00:41:21.203 --> 00:41:24.485
Gail remembers when she turned up to a TV programme,
822
00:41:24.485 --> 00:41:27.240
dressed in a costume made entirely of garbage bags.
823
00:41:27.240 --> 00:41:30.822
So this must've been a regular theme for her wrapping paper,
824
00:41:30.822 --> 00:41:33.572
garbage bags, homemade creations.
825
00:41:35.507 --> 00:41:37.090
Yes, yes, it was.
826
00:41:38.635 --> 00:41:41.900
Should we? I might, depending on which way people vote,
827
00:41:41.900 --> 00:41:45.117
we might be able to talk a little bit more about that.
828
00:41:45.117 --> 00:41:47.069
If we do, should we have one more vote, Gill?
829
00:41:47.069 --> 00:41:47.944
One more, yeah,
830
00:41:47.944 --> 00:41:49.168
I think we've got time for one more.
831
00:41:49.168 --> 00:41:50.168
Let's do it.
832
00:41:51.235 --> 00:41:54.818
So we're following the Jeanne Little path.
833
00:41:57.727 --> 00:42:00.727
Following the Jeanne Little path.
834
00:42:02.518 --> 00:42:04.900 line:15%
And here we go.
835
00:42:04.900 --> 00:42:06.011 line:15%
Yeah, sorry,
836
00:42:06.011 --> 00:42:09.081 line:15%
here you've got another choice of Barry Humphries.
837
00:42:09.081 --> 00:42:10.007 line:15%
Oh, you really want Barry Humphries
838
00:42:10.007 --> 00:42:11.805 line:15%
in this programme, don't you Penny?
839
00:42:11.805 --> 00:42:13.930 line:15%
(Penny laughing)
840
00:42:13.930 --> 00:42:14.992 line:15%
Actually, weirdly,
841
00:42:14.992 --> 00:42:17.828 line:15%
I thought it was going to involve me doing less research,
842
00:42:17.828 --> 00:42:19.861 line:15%
but in practise I ended up very different,
843
00:42:19.861 --> 00:42:22.471 line:15%
completely different Barry Humphries stories.
844
00:42:22.471 --> 00:42:24.390 line:15%
So we've got beautiful wallpaper design of
845
00:42:24.390 --> 00:42:27.542 line:15%
Florence Broadhurst, you know,
846
00:42:27.542 --> 00:42:32.273 line:15%
intriguing portrait by Joshua Smith there or a very strange
847
00:42:32.273 --> 00:42:35.905 line:15%
portrait of Barry Humphries by William Dargie.
848
00:42:35.905 --> 00:42:37.594 line:15%
Well, unfortunately we're not going to see
849
00:42:37.594 --> 00:42:38.728 line:15%
the very strange portrait,
850
00:42:38.728 --> 00:42:41.705 line:15%
although I'm sure Robert will drop it in the chat because
851
00:42:41.705 --> 00:42:44.480 line:15%
Florence Broadhurst has won by almost,
852
00:42:44.480 --> 00:42:45.419 line:15%
I wouldn't call it a landslide,
853
00:42:45.419 --> 00:42:48.370 line:15%
but it's a definite significant margin.
854
00:42:48.370 --> 00:42:51.095 line:15%
All Right, so Florence will be our last stop
855
00:42:51.095 --> 00:42:53.289 line:15%
on the, on the road, down this,
856
00:42:53.289 --> 00:42:57.822 line:15%
on the journey through this particular forest.
857
00:42:57.822 --> 00:43:01.474 line:15%
So thank you everyone for picking the option
858
00:43:01.474 --> 00:43:04.902 line:15%
that definitely allows me to explain the connection
859
00:43:04.902 --> 00:43:06.152 line:15%
that involves fashion.
860
00:43:06.152 --> 00:43:09.630 line:15%
So Jeanne Little actually had a,
861
00:43:09.630 --> 00:43:11.762 line:15%
ran a boutique dressmaking
862
00:43:11.762 --> 00:43:14.012 line:15%
establishment in Paddington
863
00:43:17.193 --> 00:43:20.546
before she was discovered for television.
864
00:43:20.546 --> 00:43:22.583
Apparently there was a photo of her wearing
865
00:43:22.583 --> 00:43:25.795
a elephant print, maternity gown that caught the eye
866
00:43:25.795 --> 00:43:28.782
of some television producers.
867
00:43:28.782 --> 00:43:30.812
So that was how she got her start,
868
00:43:30.812 --> 00:43:32.840
but she was a dressmaker
869
00:43:32.840 --> 00:43:37.432
and ran a boutique store in Paddington in Sydney.
870
00:43:37.432 --> 00:43:40.301
And that is also where Florence Broadhurst
871
00:43:40.301 --> 00:43:43.218
operated her incredible design firm
872
00:43:46.201 --> 00:43:49.325
out of Paddington through, sort of from,
873
00:43:49.325 --> 00:43:51.442
just after the year after
874
00:43:51.442 --> 00:43:53.470
this particular portrait was made.
875
00:43:53.470 --> 00:43:58.470
So these portrait's from 1968 and she moved to Paddington,
876
00:43:58.994 --> 00:44:00.553
moved her shop to Paddington
877
00:44:00.553 --> 00:44:02.514
and her whole manufacturing assets
878
00:44:02.514 --> 00:44:04.596
to Paddington the year after.
879
00:44:04.596 --> 00:44:06.634
I'm just going to bring Florence up behind me
880
00:44:06.634 --> 00:44:10.621
and we'll have a little look at the portrait.
881
00:44:10.621 --> 00:44:12.873
Speaking of no gloves.
882
00:44:12.873 --> 00:44:13.761
Yes.
883
00:44:13.761 --> 00:44:15.886
How's that for a pose.
884
00:44:15.886 --> 00:44:20.454
And I love that sense of the maker in this,
885
00:44:20.454 --> 00:44:21.572
in this portrait,
886
00:44:21.572 --> 00:44:23.884
that emphasis on the hands and the making.
887
00:44:23.884 --> 00:44:26.695
And I know we haven't got very much time left Gill,
888
00:44:26.695 --> 00:44:28.659
so now I've explained the connections
889
00:44:28.659 --> 00:44:29.840
of Florence Broadhurst.
890
00:44:29.840 --> 00:44:34.757
So she who by, by her tragic murder in 1977, by that point,
891
00:44:35.674 --> 00:44:38.042
she had over 800 designs,
892
00:44:38.042 --> 00:44:40.135
which I'm sure will be familiar to everyone
893
00:44:40.135 --> 00:44:44.751
and her archives, her work is held at the Powerhouse Museum,
894
00:44:44.751 --> 00:44:46.968
but what I particularly love,
895
00:44:46.968 --> 00:44:50.098
are two things about this story.
896
00:44:50.098 --> 00:44:52.976
She started her firm behind a car yard,
897
00:44:52.976 --> 00:44:56.664
a car sales yard in St Leonard's in Sydney
898
00:44:56.664 --> 00:45:00.337
before moving to the more salubrious establishment
899
00:45:00.337 --> 00:45:01.780
in Paddington.
900
00:45:01.780 --> 00:45:04.247
And she said that her designs were a cure
901
00:45:04.247 --> 00:45:08.997
for timid decorators syndrome, which I particularly love.
902
00:45:11.066 --> 00:45:13.995
And will never be able to forget the idea of
903
00:45:13.995 --> 00:45:16.440
whenever I'm doing anything in my house, I'm going to think,
904
00:45:16.440 --> 00:45:19.769
am I suffering from timid decorators syndrome?
905
00:45:19.769 --> 00:45:23.193
And you can definitely see how her incredible wallpaper
906
00:45:23.193 --> 00:45:26.483
and fabric designs could be a cure for that.
907
00:45:26.483 --> 00:45:28.226
So should we wrap up there,
908
00:45:28.226 --> 00:45:30.030
wrap up with Florence Broadhurst.
909
00:45:30.030 --> 00:45:31.010
Ah, thanks Penny.
910
00:45:31.010 --> 00:45:33.632
I could continue down this rabbit hole all day.
911
00:45:33.632 --> 00:45:34.915
Oh look, there's another,
912
00:45:34.915 --> 00:45:37.841
there's another amazing path linking to her childhood
913
00:45:37.841 --> 00:45:41.841
outside Bundaberg, but we sadly run out of time.
914
00:45:45.141 --> 00:45:47.092
Thank you so much for taking us
915
00:45:47.092 --> 00:45:50.221
on that amazing journey, Penny, once again.
916
00:45:50.221 --> 00:45:51.648
Oh, I've lost my virtual background,
917
00:45:51.648 --> 00:45:53.654
I've turned green.
918
00:45:53.654 --> 00:45:56.187
Oh here I am thank goodness, I've transported myself
919
00:45:56.187 --> 00:46:00.520
back outside just like magic, magic of video and TV.
920
00:46:01.641 --> 00:46:02.543
Thank you so much, Penny.
921
00:46:02.543 --> 00:46:04.338
That was fascinating as always.
922
00:46:04.338 --> 00:46:06.296
Thank you so much for, you know,
923
00:46:06.296 --> 00:46:08.613
the stories and the background behind those portraits.
924
00:46:08.613 --> 00:46:11.036
It's just been fantastic to explore them with you
925
00:46:11.036 --> 00:46:13.412
and thank you to everybody for joining us today.
926
00:46:13.412 --> 00:46:16.996
Once again, for one of our fun tour, virtual tours,
927
00:46:16.996 --> 00:46:19.229
I hope that you will all jump on our website
928
00:46:19.229 --> 00:46:21.498
and check out what we've got coming up tomorrow.
929
00:46:21.498 --> 00:46:24.566
We have a special crafternoon planned for anyone
930
00:46:24.566 --> 00:46:26.146
with young ones in their lives
931
00:46:26.146 --> 00:46:29.239
or the young at heart who want to do a little bit of craft,
932
00:46:29.239 --> 00:46:31.990
but we've also got a special book reading by Mem Fox.
933
00:46:31.990 --> 00:46:35.065
So speaking of incredible Australian authors,
934
00:46:35.065 --> 00:46:38.257
that's probably one not to miss tomorrow afternoon.
935
00:46:38.257 --> 00:46:39.853
Next Monday,
936
00:46:39.853 --> 00:46:41.871
our mindfulness Mondays are kicking off again
937
00:46:41.871 --> 00:46:45.203
and we've got a really dedicated following to those now.
938
00:46:45.203 --> 00:46:46.570
So jump on our website
939
00:46:46.570 --> 00:46:49.248
if you'd like to book in to take a really slow look at some
940
00:46:49.248 --> 00:46:51.476
of the portraits from the Living Memory Exhibition,
941
00:46:51.476 --> 00:46:54.192
you might want to jump on and book for that one because we
942
00:46:54.192 --> 00:46:57.062
actually only have a hundred places available for each of
943
00:46:57.062 --> 00:46:58.222
those sessions.
944
00:46:58.222 --> 00:47:00.516
So if you'd like to experience a nice slow,
945
00:47:00.516 --> 00:47:04.548
leisurely wander through some portraits, then yeah,
946
00:47:04.548 --> 00:47:07.395
please do get on and book your place for that.
947
00:47:07.395 --> 00:47:08.416
Otherwise,
948
00:47:08.416 --> 00:47:10.841
I hope to see you all next week for our virtual highlights
949
00:47:10.841 --> 00:47:13.976
tour on Tuesday and for another one of these incredible
950
00:47:13.976 --> 00:47:17.681
tours that we're doing on Thursday next week,
951
00:47:17.681 --> 00:47:20.714
we've got our curator, Joe Gilmore,
952
00:47:20.714 --> 00:47:23.692
who has just thrown all caution to the wind.
953
00:47:23.692 --> 00:47:24.525
When I said to her,
954
00:47:24.525 --> 00:47:26.666
you know, what programme do you want to do next Thursday?
955
00:47:26.666 --> 00:47:28.951
She said, let the people decide.
956
00:47:28.951 --> 00:47:32.028
I don't, I'm just going to turn up and you can serve up some
957
00:47:32.028 --> 00:47:35.797
portraits and I will just talk to them, you know,
958
00:47:35.797 --> 00:47:37.647
without any preparation.
959
00:47:37.647 --> 00:47:40.880
So let's see what happens next Thursday with Joe,
960
00:47:40.880 --> 00:47:42.105
please join us.
961
00:47:42.105 --> 00:47:44.380
And until then stay safe, stay well.
962
00:47:44.380 --> 00:47:46.079
And it's so lovely to see you all.
963
00:47:46.079 --> 00:47:47.662
Thank you, bye bye.