Bronwyn Kidd

Bronwyn Kidd was born in Melbourne in 1969 to Robert Kidd (Melbourne, 1940–2004), a butcher, and Barbara Kidd (née Wilson, in Melbourne, 1942). She undertook her upper-secondary education at Ivanhoe Girls' Grammar School 1983-1986, where, using her father's Pentax ME II Super, her interest in photography began. Moving up to a Canon F1 at RMIT University she undertook a Bachelor of Arts 1987-1989. There, lecturer Alex Syndikas[1] introduced her to the work of Sarah Moon and she discovered Cecil Beaton, Norman Parkinson and Athol Shmith, all of whose works were an influence on her.

Eager to begin a career, Kidd left art school early, and she took work as an assistant to local fashion photographers. She soon moved to the United Kingdom, in 1992, where she worked with fellow Australian Polly Borland and fashion photographer Clive Arrowsmith.[2] At barely 23 years of age she was taken on by the Queen's couturier Sir Hardy Amies to shoot exclusively for his Savile Row seasonal collections and advertising. For these, she started to use a medium-format Rollei and hired famed British model Paula Hamilton. Kidd has expressed her angle on fashion as an admiration of beauty rather than mere 'sexiness'.[3]

Since 1988 a number of her portraits of fashion designers, including Bella Freud,[4][5] Bruce Oldfield (OBE),[6] Caroline Charles[7] and shoe designer Jimmy Choo[8] have been on exhibition at, and are held in, the National Portrait Gallery, London. Of portraiture, Kidd has said;

"I have had wondrous conversations with people that I may never have met in my lifetime, let alone had dialogue with if I did not have a camera in my hand. The camera serves in many ways as a rite of passage, a privilege, an invitation."[9]

In 2004 Kidd moved back to Australia where she continued her success, concentrating on advertising, but also continued her portraiture, capturing important Australian icons; actress Teresa Palmer, and photographer Bill Henson. Her portraits began to feature prominently in the national press, and subjects include Judge Betty King, Vicki Roach, Philip Lynch, Rob Story, Fiona Smith, Kon Karapanagiotidis, Maxine Morand, Daniel Andrews, Helen Silver, Rod Eddington, Lindsay Tanner, Greg Hunt, Bernie Finn, Carole Francis, and artists Bill Henson, Sam Leach and Gareth Samson.[10] In 2016 she co-created, with long-time collaborator the creative director Virginia Dowzer, the image used to promote the National Gallery of Victoria’s 200 Years of Australian Fashion exhibition.[11]

Kidd is represented by MARS Gallery, Melbourne.[12]

Bronwyn Kidd currently lives with her husband, son and step-son in outer Melbourne.

• 2009 AIPP Celebrating Women in Photography[13][14]
• 2009 Mobius Advertising Awards

• 1998 National Portrait Gallery, London.
• 2006 National Portrait Gallery, London. Chinese Connections[15]
• 2008 Strip Jack Naked, Bronwyn Kidd & Virginia Dowzer, Format Furniture, Flinders Lane, Melbourne[16]
• 2008 William and Winifred Bowness Prize, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne.[17]
• 2009 59.5 (Aka 100 Great Outfits), Melbourne, Cose Impanema - Collins Street, Melbourne[18]
• 2016 200 Years of Australian Fashion, National Gallery of Victoria[11][19]
• 2019, September 22 – November 30; Homage to Style, Living Arts Space, Bendigo[20][21][22]
• 2020, August; Frankston Art Space.

• Hardy Amies
• National Portrait Gallery, London[23]

• Official Website
• "Time With JOAN" Photographs, interviews and videos record Bronwyn Kidd portrait photoshoots of significant subjects