From multi-award-winning writer Helen Ennis comes the first ever biography of the photographer Max Dupain, the most influential Australian photographer of the 20th century and creator of many iconic images that have passed into our national imagination.

WINNER of the National Biography Award 2026

One of The Guardian's 25 Best Australian Books of 2024

Highly Commended at the ACT Literary Awards 2025

Shortlisted for the Mark & Evette Moran Nib Literary Award 2025

Longlisted for the 2026 Magarey Medal


Max Dupain (1911-1992) was a major cultural figure in Australia, and at the forefront of the visual arts in a career spanning more than fifty years. During this time he produced a number of images now regarded as iconically Australian. He championed modern photography and a distinctive Australian approach.

To date, Dupain has been seen mostly in one-dimensional, limited and limiting terms - as exceptional, as super masculine, as an Australian hero. But this landmark biography approaches him as a complex and contradictory figure who, despite the apparent certitude of his photographic style, was filled with self-doubt and anxiety. Dupain was a Romantic and a rationalist and struggled with the intensity of his emotions and reactions. He wanted simplicity in his art and life, but found it difficult to attain. He never wanted to be ordinary.

Examining the sources of his creativity - literature, art, music - alongside his approaches to masculinity, love, the body, war, and nature, Max Dupain: A Portrait reveals a driven artist, one whose relationship to his work has been described as 'ferocious' and 'painful to watch'. Photographer David Moore, a long-term friend, said he 'needed to photograph like he needed to breathe. It was part of him. It gave him his drive and force in life.'

'In this deeply thought book ... [Ennis'] thoughts subtly accumulate into a complex portrait of a man and a rich picture of Australia ... Revelatory.' The Conversation

'This handsome biography ... a more complex man and career are revealed in lucid prose by Ennis, a leading historian of photography.' Guardian