Helen Ennis' 'Max Dupain: A Portrait'

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, the acclaimed author and art historian Dr Helen Ennis chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting Max Dupain: A Portrait, the first biography of the photographer Max Dupain, Australia’s most influential photographer of the 20th century.  

Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:  

• Helen Ennis’s inspiration for crafting Max Dupain: A Portrait  


• How Max Dupain’s photograph ‘The floater’ influenced Helen’s narrative strategy and the biography’s tone  


• How Dupain’s character drove the plot  


• How the women in Dupain’s life and work were instrumental to his success  


• How Helen achieved a fine balance between Dupain’s professional and public life and his human story  


• How she reconciled Dupain’s contradictions and complexity to craft a biography characterised by intense psychological closeness  


• How she ensured her voice as the narrator didn’t overshadow Dupain’s voice and artistic vision  


• The extent to which Helen interpreted Dupain’s character and behaviour versus providing clues and leaving it up to readers to draw their own   conclusions.