CANBERRA.- The National Portrait Gallery announces a new temporary exhibition of photographs by Rod McNicol.

Life and time: Portraits by Rod McNicol features 20 photographic portraits spanning McNicol’s decades long career. The portraits are of people from Rod’s own life: his friends, and members of his social world.

Senior Curator at the National Portrait Gallery, Dr Chris Chapman, is thrilled to be working with Monash Gallery of Art to bring McNicol’s incredible works to Canberra.

“What we have on display is a special collection of works from one of Australia’s most accomplished photographic portrait artists. Together the photographs evoke the contemplation of time and its effects on our lives.” said Dr Chapman.

“Rod McNicol is an extraordinary artist. Through his portraits the viewer gets a sense of the life of the subject conveyed with freshness and immediacy.”

Born in 1946, Australian photographer Rod McNicol has consistently analysed the passing of time through the evidence of the photographic portrait. At once confronting and tender, McNicol’s portrait photographs are bold and intimate.

McNicol founded The Photographers Gallery in South Yarra Melbourne in 1975 and has been a prominent figure in the Melbourne photographic scene for many decades. He was awarded the Portrait Gallery’s National Photographic Portrait Prize in 2012 for his portrait of Indigenous actor Jack Charles.

Life and time: Portraits by Rod McNicol are on display at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, until 23 August 2015.