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The first work commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) — Bill Henson's dramatic 2002 triptych of conductor Simone Young — will grace its walls again as part of a new display celebrating Australian women.
The NPG's inaugural director, Andrew Sayers, requested the portrait in a handwritten letter to Henson in 1998.
But the sitting did not occur until four years later, when the busy schedules of the internationally renowned photographer and conductor finally aligned.
Portrait defined new gallery's 'contemporary relevance'
NPG curator Penny Grist said Sayers, who died in 2015, had loved Henson's evocative portrait series Paris Opera Project and wanted to buck the public's expectation that portraits were dull.
"It was really part of defining the vision for the portrait gallery as being this gallery of contemporary relevance," Ms Grist said.
"And you couldn't get a better sitter than this vivacious, young, going-places ... female conductor who has so many firsts to her name."
Young was the youngest person and first woman to be appointed as a resident conductor with Opera Australia and served as its chief conductor from 2001 to 2003.
She was the first woman to conduct Wagner's full Ring Cycle and has worked with leading opera companies in Europe.
Ms Grist said Henson shared Young's "deep love" of late romantic opera.
"She has said that opera itself is about human intimacy and that's really what Bill Henson explores in his work as well, so the matching couldn't have been more perfect," she said.
"When she [Young] saw the triptych she said it was like three acts of an opera."
Fresh celebration of Australian women
The NPG's third Focus on Australian Women display opens in Gallery 7 on March 31.
Other works to be featured include Ivan Durrant's 1989 painting of Chrissy Amphlett, Lorrie Graham's 1994 photographic portrait of Bonita Mabo, and Tony Kearney's 2016 print of Gill Hicks.
Bill Henson the exhibition opened at the National Gallery of Victoria on March 10.
Topics: fine-art-photography, library-museum-and-gallery, opera-and-musical-theatre, classical, human-interest, canberra-2600