Ponch Hawkes Biography

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
2005 Risk, Monash Gallery of Art, Victoria and touring Mildura Arts Centre, Swan Hill Regional Art Gallery,
and Horsham Regional Art Gallery
Sensation, Chrysalis Publishing Gallery & Studio, Melbourne
2003 They’re downstairs, North Melbourne Arts House, Melbourne
2001 Todah, Jewish Museum, St Kilda
1999 St Vincents at Home, Aikenhead Gallery Melbourne
1999 Ponch Hawkes - a survey, Glen Eira City Gallery then touring 6 venues
1998 Relatively Speaking, Centre for Contemporary Photography Melbourne
1997 Photoworks, Victoria University Gallery Melbourne
Circus Oz, Performing Arts Museum Collection, Westpac Gallery, Victorian Arts Centre
1995 Relatively Speaking – The Family in Words and Pictures, Chrissie Cotter Gallery, Sydney
1994 Kensington Oral History Project, Kensington Library, Melbourne
1990 Best Mates, William Mora Gallery, Melbourne
1989 Generations, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
1976 Our Mums and Us, Brummels Gallery, Melbourne

SELECTED GROUP AND INVITATION EXHIBITIONS
2004 The Interior World: photographs and photographers from Glen Eira City Council’s Collection, Glen Eira City Gallery, Caulfield South
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 Women, Extraordinary Lives, Melbourne Museum, then touring 10 venues
2000 Women Photographers, Monash City Gallery; Australian work, RMIT 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 of Australia, San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego; All in the Family – Selected Australian Portraiture, National Library of Australia, Canberra; Domain of the Other, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 1992
1990 Defective Models – Australian Portraiture 19th and 20th Centuries, from regional, university and private collections, Monash University Gallery Melbourne
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, Canberra
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 Women Photographers, Monash
University Gallery, Melbourne and Developed Image, Adelaide
1981 Women’s Work, La Trobe University Gallery, Melbourne; Circus Oz in Performance, (with Laurel Frank), La Trobe University Gallery, Melbourne and Watters Gallery, Sydney
1980 Self Portrait/Self Image, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne and touring
1978 100 Artists, Panel Beaters Gallery, Melbourne
1977 New Conceptualists, Tokyo; Sisters Delight, Media Resource Centre Gallery, Adelaide
1976 Women Photographers, Pram Factory, Melbourne

BOOKS
‘Trading Places’, Interviews and text by David Crofts, Photographs by Ponch Hawkes, City of Greater Dandenong 2006
‘Australian Water Polo, A Celebration’, by Shane Maloney and Ponch Hawkes, Australian Water Polo Inc.1998
‘Women of Substance’, Sue Jackson and Gael Wallace with photographs by Ponch Hawkes, Allen and Unwin 1998
‘Unfolding- The Story of Australian and New Zealand Memorial Quilt’, by Ponch Hawkes with text by Ainsley Yardley and Kim Langley, McPhee Gribble, 1994
‘Best Mates, A Study of Male Frienship’, by Ponch Hawkes, McPhee Gribble/Penguin 1990
‘Generations: grandmothers, Mothers and Daughters’, by Diane Bell with Ponch Hawkes, McPhee Gribble and Penguin Books, Melbourne 1987
‘Pay to Play’, by Wendy Milson, Helen Thomas and Ponch Hawkes, Penguin 1976

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Christopher Allen, ‘Art in Australia’, Thames and Hudson, 1997.
Janine Burke, ‘Field of Vision - A decade of Change: Womens Art in the 70s’, Viking, 1990.
Virginia Coventry, ‘The Critical Distance: Work with Photography’, Hale and Iremonger, 1986.
Isobel Crombie and Sandra Bryon, ‘Twenty Contemporary Australian Photographers’, from Hallmark Cards Australian Photographic Collection, NGV and ANGSW, 1990.
Anne Kirker and Clare Williamson, ‘The Power to Move: Aspects of Australian Photography’, Queensland Art Gallery 1995