Media releases

A book on the artist Tom Roberts by Julie Cotter, an Art and Design Lecturer at Federation University Australia, has been shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Award for Non-Fiction.  

In Tom Roberts and the Art of Portraiture, Julie Cotter examines the portraits by the Australian impressionist artist Tom Roberts focusing upon the extraordinary range of subjects, their lives and their historical significance.

The book analyses 280 portraits by Roberts representing approximately 35 per cent of his total output.

"I am most honoured to have been nominated in a very tough field and it is great to see a text on Australian art included in the list,” Julie Cotter said.

“In his work Roberts explores the diversity of Australian identity in his depiction of members of Sydney and Melbourne society as well as portraits of pastoralists, farmhands, pearl divers and itinerants.

“The book culminates in a chapter devoted to Australia's major history painting of the opening of the first Federal Parliament.”

Julie Cotter is an art historian at our Gippsland Campus specialising in portraiture and the Australian Impressionists. Julie is committed to exploring and promoting the study of Australian history through portraiture.

In researching Tom Roberts's portraits she travelled to the many Australian and international sites of production of the works, particularly the remote areas that attracted Roberts.

By locating the historical relevance of subjects Julie Cotter hopes to engage readers in the stories of those who participated in the construction of a contemporary Australian identity.