MEANJIN BACK ISSUE

Portraits of the Artist
Vol. 62, no. 2, 2003

The lives of artists domestic, social, commercial, erotic can be as fascinating as their works, and the current Meanjin focuses on all these aspects.

The word artist is interpreted broadly to include not just painters, composers and authors, but also film-makers, journalists, broadcasters, gardeners, comedians, dancers. Among those featured will be the Boyds, in a new essay by Brenda Niall, following her acclaimed biography of the family; Percy Grainger, in an essay on his extraordinary sex life and music by David Pear; Henry James, in an essay on his (non?) sex life by Christopher Bram, author of Gods and Monsters; William Morris, in an exploration of his connections with Australia, by Peter Stansky; Charles Conder, in a review essay by Bernard Smith on the new study of the painter by Ann Galbally; Barry Humphries, in a comparison of his two autobiographies by Jim Davidson; and contemporary Melbourne artist Sally Smart, in dialogue with fellow-artist Cynthia Wild.

American novelist, Philippe Tapon, contributes an intriguing essay on the new art of 'Noise Music' and its practitioners. Other contributors will include Jessica Anderson (a memoir about her initiation into the world of word processing) Patrick McCaughey on the new galleries at Federation Square, Melbourne), Vivian Smith on twentieth-century Australian poetry), the multi-award-winning historian Ken Inglis on the latest travails and achievements of the ABC, and the recently-announced Miles Franklin award-winner, Alex Miller, on 'The Artist as Magician'.

Among other fiction, there is a superb new story from A.L. McCann, author of the widely acclaimed novel, The White Body of Evening. And among other new poems from poets old and new, Bruce Dawe revisits Ern Malley territory, anticipating Peter Carey's new novel about the famous literary hoax.