Robert Hannaford

This long-awaited exhibition presents fifty years of work by South Australia’s most celebrated portraitist, Robert Hannaford. Revered for his ability to capture the true nature or ‘essence’ of his sitters and recipient of numerous important commissions and awards, Hannaford has been selected as a finalist for the Archibald Prize over the past twenty-five years, winning the people’s choice three times.

Lesser known about Hannaford’s practice is that he has spent his life recording in pencil and charcoal the world around him, amassing over the course of a fifty-year career a personal archive of thousands of drawings depicting the natural and social landscapes he inhabits. The exhibition assembles many of these previously unseen portrait and figure drawings alongside some of the artist’s more familiar paintings. Many of Hannaford’s favourite artists from the Art Gallery’s collection will be included in the exhibition, bringing him into conversation with 500 years of art.