Biography
![Ponch Hawkes]( "Ponch Hawkes")
Born in Melbourne in 1946, Ponch Hawkes is a Melbourne based freelance photographer. Early in her career she worked as a journalist and photographer for Digger magazine; since then her photographs have been published widely, in Australian books, magazines and newspapers.
Hawkes has been the photographer for, and a member of, Circus Oz since its inception in 1978.
She has also been a member and the photographer of The Australian Performing Group at the Pram Factory since the early 1970s, and was the first administrator of the Womens Theatre Group in the mid 1970s.
Her solo book ‘Best Mates’ was published in 1990, (McPhee Gribble); she has collaborated on a further six published books.
Hawkes has worked on assignment in Cambodia, Ethiopia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Holland, England and the USA, amongst other countries.
Fourteen solo exhibitions of her work have been held since 1976, including ‘Generations’, a solo exhibition held at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1989. Her photographs are held in the Collections of the Australian National Gallery, National Gallery of Victoria, Queensland Art Gallery, State Library of Victoria, Monash Gallery of Art, City of Melbourne, Albury Regional Art Gallery and private collections in Australia and overseas.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2006 Trading Places, Heritage Hill Museum, Dandenong and Immigration Museum, Melbourne
2005 Risk, Monash Gallery of Art
Sensation, Chrysalis Gallery, East Melbourne
2003 They're downstairs, North Melbourne Arts House
2001 Todah, Jewish Museum, St Kilda, Melbourne
1999 St Vincent’s at Home, Aikenhead Gallery, Melbourne
Ponch Hawkes - A Survey, Glen Eira City Gallery then touring 6 venues
1998 Relatively Speaking- The Family in Words and Pictures, Chrissie Cotter Gallery, Sydney, and Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne
1997 Photoworks, Victoria University Gallery, Melbourne
Circus Oz, Performing Arts Museum Collection, Westpac Gallery, Victorian Arts Centre, Melbourne
1994 Kensington Oral History Project, Kensington Library, Melbourne
1990 Best Mates, William Mora Gallery, Melbourne
1989 Generations, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
1981 Circus Oz in Performance, La Trobe University Gallery and Watters Gallery, Sydney
1976 Our Mums and Us, Brummels Gallery, Melbourne
SELECTED GROUP AND INVITATION EXHIBITIONS
2009
'Step Right Up! The Circus in Australian
Art', The George Adams Gallery, touring
Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photographic Award, Gold Coast City Art Gallery (finalist)
2008
Olive Cotton Award, Tweed River Art Gallery, Murwillumbar (finalist)
2007
Beyond Reasonable Drought, Old Parliament House, Canberra and touring
2006
Raised by Wolves, Art Gallery of Western Australia
Julie Millowick Aquisitive Prize, Castlemaine Festival (winner)
Murray Cod: The Biggest Fish in the River, Swan Hill Gallery and 5 other venues
Blake prize for Religious Art (finalist)
2006
Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photographic Award, Gold Coast City Art Gallery (finalist)
Olive Cotton Award for Photographic Portraiture, Tweed River Art Gallery, Murwillumbar (finalist)
Making Hay at Shear Outback Center, Hay, NSW, and Span Galleries, Melbourne
2004
The Interior World: photographs and photographers from Glen Eira City Council's Collection, Glen Eira City Gallery, Caulfield South, Melbourne
2002
Documenting Australians, A pictorial history of Australian photography, Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill
Images of Australian Men, Photographs from the Monash Gallery of Art collection, travelling exhibition
Exhibit X - Group Photographic Exhibition, Lab X Gallery, St Kilda
So You Wanna Be a Rock Star, National Portrait Gallery, Canberra
2001
Ordinary Woman, Extraordinary Lives, Melbourne Museum, touring 10 venues
2000
Woman Photographers, Monash City Gallery
1999
Feminist Art, RMIT First Line Gallery Melbourne 1998 - 2001
1997
Three Melbourne Photographers, Ballarat Festival, Ballarat
1996
The Power to Move, Aspects of Australian Photography, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane
1995
Six Photographers, Barry Stern Gallery, Sydney
1994
On the Edge, Australian Photographers of the Seventies, from the collection of the National Library Australia, San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego
All in the family - Selected Australian Portraiture, National Library of Australia, Canberra
1992
Domain of the Other, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
1990
Defective Models – Australian Portraiture 19th and 20th Centuries, from regional, university and private collections, Monash University Gallery
1989
Portrait Photography, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
1988
The Thousand Mile Stare, Australian Centre of Contemporary Art, Melbourne, touring
Art and Working Life, Roar Studios, Melbourne
Shades of Light - Photography and Australia 1839 to 1988, Australian National Gallery
1986
Living in the Seventies, Australian National Gallery, Canberra
1984
Australian Photographers, Australian National Gallery, Canberra
1983
Photographic Work, Perc Tucker Gallery, Townsville
The Critical Distance, Artspace, Sydney
1982
Melbourne Theatre Photographers, Ministry for the Arts, Melbourne
Eight Woman Photographers, Monash University Gallery, Melbourne and Developed Image, Adelaide
1981
Woman's Work, La Trobe University Gallery, Melbourne
1980
Self Portrait/Self Image, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne and touring
1978
100 Artists, Panel Beaters Gallery, Melbourne
1977
New Conceptualists, Tokyo
Sister’s Delight, Media Resource Centre Gallery, Adelaide
1976
Woman Photographers, Pram Factory, Melbourne
BOOKS
2006 Trading Places, text by David Crofts, photos by Ponch Hawkes, City of Greater Dandenong
2002 Art of Reconciliation, edited by Ponch Hawkes, City of Melbourne
1998 Australian Water Polo, A Celebration, by Shane Maloney and Ponch Hawkes, Australian Water Polo Inc.
Women of Substance, Sue Jackson and Gael Wallace with photographs by Ponch Hawkes, Allen and Unwin
1994 Unfolding - The Story of Australian and New Zealand Memorial Quilt, by Ponch Hawkes with text by Ainsley Yardley and Kim Langley, McPhee Gribble
1990 Best Mates, A Study of Male Friendship, by Ponch Hawkes, McPhee Gribble and Penguin Books
1987 Generations: Grandmothers, Mothers and Daughters, by Diane Bell with Ponch Hawkes, McPhee Gribble & Penguin Books, Melbourne
1976 Pay to Play, by Wendy Milson, Helen Thomas and Ponch Hawkes, Penguin
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
2006 Alan McCulloch, Susan McCulloch and Emily McCulloch Childs, The New McCulloch's Encyclopedia of Australian Art, Aus Art Editions
1997 Christopher Allen, Art in Australia, Thames and Hudson
1995 Anne Kirker and Clare Willliamson, The Power to Move: Aspects of Australian Photography, Queensland Art Gallery
1990 Janine Burke, Field of Vision – A Decade of Change: Woman's Art in the 70s, Viking
Isobel Combie and Sandra Bryon, Twenty Contemporary Australian Photographers, from Hallmark Cards Australian Photographic Collection, NGV and ANGSW
1986 Virginia Coventry, The Critical Distance - Work with Photography, Hale and Iremonger
COLLECTIONS
Albury Regional Art Gallery
City of Melbourne
Horsham Regional Art Gallery
Jewish Museum of Australia
Monash Gallery of Art
Australian National Gallery
National Gallery of Victoria
Queensland Art Gallery
State Library of Victoria
Private collections
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