Helen Ennis

Helen Ennis has explored the complex relationships between art and life throughout her career, as a curator, photo-historian and writer. She was formerly Curator of Photography at the National Gallery of Australia and has curated numerous exhibitions for the NGA, the National Portrait Gallery of Australia and the National Library of Australia. Her many books include Photography and Australia, and Reveries: Photography and Mortality.

In recent years she has published three biographies. Margaret Michaelis: Love, loss and photography was winner of the 2006 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction, and Olive Cotton: A life in photography won the 2020 Queensland Literary Award for Non-Fiction, the 2022 Adelaide Festival Award for Non-Fiction, and the 2020 Magarey Medal for Biography.  Max Dupain: A Portrait is her most recent biography. It offers new understandings of Dupain, his work and his times from a contemporary perspective.

Helen was Director of the Centre for Art History and Art Theory at ANU School of Art & Design and is now Professor Emerita at ANU. In 2021 she was awarded the J. Dudley Johnston Medal by the British Royal Photographic Society for her contribution to photographic history.