Ponch Hawkes
b. 1946. Lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia.
Solo Exhibitions
2023 In Her Prime, Queen Victoria Womens Centre
2021-22 500 Strong, Geelong Art Gallery; Shepparton Art Museum; Horsham Gallery;
2020 Changing Faces, Bayside Council Chambers;
2013 Ponch Hawkes: works from the MGA Collection, Monash Gallery of Art; and touring;
2012 Eros,Philos and Agape (installation), Melbourne Cricket Ground;
2009-13 More seeing is NOT Understanding, Horsham Regional Gallery; Monash Gallery of Art; Brisbane Powerhouse; Portland; Redland Art Gallery; Albury City Gallery;
2006 Trading Places, Heritage Hill Museum, Dandenong; Immigration Museum, Melbourne;
2005 Risk, Monash Gallery of Art; and touring;
Sensation, Chrysalis Gallery, East Melbourne;
2001 Todah, Jewish Museum, St Kilda;
1999 St Vincent’s at Home, Aikenhead Gallery, Melbourne;
Ponch Hawkes - A Survey, Glen Eira City Gallery; and six tour venues;
1998 Relatively Speaking- The Family in Words and Pictures, Chrissie Cotter Gallery, Sydney; Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne;
1997 Photoworks, Victoria University Gallery, Melbourne;
Circus Oz, Performing Arts Museum Collection, 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, Melbourne; Watters Gallery, Sydney;
1976 Our Mums and Us, Brummels Gallery, South Yarra.
Selected Group Exhibitions
2021 Debut XV!!: Made to keep the Memory Alive, Blindside, Melbourne;
Flesh After Fifty, Abbotsford Convent, Melbourne; Geelong Gallery; Shepparton Art Museum;
2020 Know My Name, National Gallery of Australia;
Sex and Death and the Internet, Darwin Festival;
The Ties That Bind, Monash Gallery of Art;
2019 Sex and Death, Modestraat, Amsterdam;
In Her Words, Horsham Regional Gallery;
Beyond the Studio, MAPgroup, Castlemaine State Festival;
2018 This Place, Northcote Town Hall;
2016 Sex and Death, Festival of Live Art, Arts House, North Melbourne;
The Documentary Take – Walker Evans and selected Australian Art, Melbourne Festival, Centre for Contemporary Photography;
Sanctuary, Glen Eira Arts Centre;
2015 Beyond Borders, Ballarat International Foto Biennale, Ballarat;
Flash!, Arts Centre, Melbourne;
Bohemian Melbourne, State Library of Victoria;
2014 Photography Meets Feminism: Australian Women Photographers 1970s-80s, Monash Gallery of Art; and touring;
Out of the Closets, into the Streets, Edmund Pearse Gallery, Melbourne;
Beyond Borders Federation Square, Melbourne; Photo Festival Sydney; Dandenong;
2013 Melbourne Now, NGV Australia, Melbourne;
Mapping Wonthaggi, Wonthaggi, Victoria;
Take A Bow, Ballarat Mechanics Institute;
2009 Mapping Ballarat, Ballarat International Foto Biennale;
2008 Step Right Up!- the circus in Australian Art, Albury City Gallery; and touring;
2007 Beyond Reasonable Drought, Old Parliament House, Canberra; and touring;
2006 Raised by Wolves, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth;
Murray Cod: The Biggest Fish in the River, Swan Hill Gallery; and five tour venues;
Making Hay at Shear Outback Center, Hay, NSW; Span Galleries, Melbourne;
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;
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; ten tour venues;
2000 Woman Photographers, Monash City Gallery;
1999 Feminist Art, RMIT First Line Gallery, Melbourne;
1997 Three Melbourne Photographers, Ballarat Festival;
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; and 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 Woman Photographers, Monash University Gallery, Melbourne; 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
Selected Awards and Residencies
Finalist, Bowness Prize, 2020;
Finalist, Bowness Prize, 2019;
Winner, ROI Art Prize, 2018;
Finalist, Martin Kantor Prize, Ballarat International Foto Biennale, 2018;
Finalist, Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photographic Prize, 2015;
Basil Sellers Creative Arts Fellow, National Sports Museum, MCG, Melbourne, 2011-2012;
Winner, Julie Millowick Aquisitive Prize, Castlemaine Festival, 2006;
Finalist, Blake Prize for Religious Art, 2006;
Finalist, Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photographic Award, 2006;
Finalist, Olive Cotton Award for Photographic Portraiture, 2006
Books
Beyond Reasonable Drought: Photographs of a Changing Land and its People, MAP Group, Five Mile Press, 2009;
Trading Places, text by David Crofts, photos by Ponch Hawkes, City of Greater Dandenong, 2006;
Art of Reconciliation, edited by Ponch Hawkes, City of Melbourne, 2002;
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, 1998;
Best Mates, A Study of Male Friendship, by Ponch Hawkes, McPhee Gribble and Penguin Books, 1990;
Generations: Grandmothers, Mothers and Daughters, by Diane Bell with Ponch Hawkes, McPhee Gribble & Penguin Books, Melbourne, 1987;
Pay to Play, by Wendy Milson, Helen Thomas and Ponch Hawkes, Penguin, 1976.
Selected Bibliography
2021 Art Guide Australia, Nov-Dec 2021;
Anne Marsh, Doing Feminism: Women’s Art and Feminist Criticism, MUP 2021;
2020 Jacqueline Milner, Flesh After Fifty – Changing Images of Older Women in Art, Artlink 40/3 September 2020;
2019 Maggie Finch, Ponch Hawkes in Context, Discipline, no.5/Mas alle de fin 3;
2010 Anne Marsh, LOOK :Contemporary Photography since 1980, Macmillan;
2006 Alan McCulloch, Susan McCulloch and Emily McCulloch Childs, 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 Iremong
Selected Collections
National Gallery of Australia
National Gallery of Victoria
Queensland Art Gallery
State Library of Victoria
Monash Gallery of Art
City of Melbourne
Horsham Regional Art Gallery
Jewish Museum of Australia
Private collections