Helen Ennis' 'Max Dupain: A Portrait'

Biographers in Conversation · Mar 5, 2025 · 1h 11m

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…