Bronwyn Kidd (born 1969) is an Australian photographer known for fashion and portraiture.
Early life Bronwyn Kidd was born in Melbourne in 1969 to Robert Kidd, a butcher,Public Records Office of Victoria; Melbourne, Australia; Apprentice History Cards, 1956-1976; Reference Number: 11538/P0001/32 and Barbara Kidd (née Wilson). 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 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.
Career
Fashion 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.Kate Sears, 'Bronwyn isn’t kidding around,' in Mornington Peninsula Magazine, 25 June 2019, p.70 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'. The magazines in which her fashion photography was published include Harper's Bazaar, Queen, Tatler, Marie Claire UK, Sainsbury's Magazine, Day Four, Wedding and Home Magazine, The London Magazine, and The Saturday Times.
Portraitist Since 1988 a number of her portraits of fashion designers, including Bella Freud, Bruce Oldfield (OBE), Caroline Charles and shoe designer Jimmy Choo have been on exhibition at, and are held in, the National Portrait Gallery, London. Her portrait of John Cleese appeared on the cover of the BBC publication The Human Face. Of portraiture, Kidd has said;
Return to Australia In 2004, Kidd moved back to Australia where she concentrated on advertising and fashion, but also continued her portraiture, depicting 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, Kate Ceberano, Rob Story, Fiona Smith, Kon Karapanagiotidis, Maxine Morand, Daniel Andrews, Helen Silver, Rod Eddington, Lindsay Tanner, Greg Hunt, Bernie Finn, Gideon Obarzanek, Carole Francis, and artists Bill Henson, Sam Leach and Gareth Samson."The (Top 100) 2008, Melbourne's Most Influential People". The (Melbourne) Magazine, The Age, issue 51. Fairfax Media. January 2009. pp. 80–81.
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.
Andy Dinan, director of MARS Gallery, described her portraits as contemporary but with "a wistfulness for the golden age of fashion photography" and in a statement quoted by Emma Pham in Art Collector said: “Bronwyn‘s photographs convey a sense of fluidity, beauty and timelessness. They testify to a contemporary vision which resonates today, making her one of Australia’s most exciting contemporary photographers.”
Kidd refined her aesthetics and collaborations with her sitters in portraits she has produced in the 2020s of subjects including artist Rosslynd Piggott and Polly Borland, the latter work winning her the 2025 Martin Kantor Portrait Prize in the Ballarat International Foto Biennale, judged by Natasha Bullock, Senior Curator, National Gallery of Victoria; Alexander Robinson, Director, Photoaccess and Stephen Payne, Creative Activation Producer, Ballarat International Foto Biennale . Her 2022 portraits of Maudie Palmer were prominently referenced in obituaries and tributes to the Australian curator/director.
Fine artist In the 2020s Kidd turned from the commercial world and devoted her attention to collaborative fine art projects from which, every year, she has produced solo exhibitions, contributed to group exhibitions, and participated successfully in major awards. She was represented by MARS Gallery, Melbourne, and Flinders Lane Gallery, has exhibited at the Ballarat International Foto Biennale and at Frankston and Montsalvat arts centres. The journal Art Collector describes how her series Through Her Breath "celebrates ancestral breath, placing women, whose bodies are the source of our first breaths, as the inscribers of embodied legacies of past and present."
Kidd works with artists from other disciplines, drawing them into a democratic and feminist collaboration on elaborate projects. Of Sea Lion Sisters from which a selection was exhibited alongside her series Ice Queens (2023) at Satellite Projects, Collingwood, curator Jenny Port wrote: "Kidd’s series Sea Lion Sisters (2024)...explores intimacy, resilience, and kinship between women. Drawing on the protective movements of sea lion mothers, the project unfolds within a luminous set evoking mother-of-pearl, a symbolic feminine space of shelter and creation." Andrea Louise Thomas of Frankston Arts Centre notes the collaboration between Kidd, the choreographer Carol Brown, costume designer Virginia Dowser, paper artist Amanda May for the set, and with the dancers: The dancers explored how they could move in the costumes. Bronwyn then thought of putting the dancers on a revolving set inside the cove like an animated diorama. The dancers moved fluidly like two sea lions in rippling sea kelp. Blending digital and analogue photography techniques, Bronwyn came up with a series of twelve dynamic, striking images celebrating the female spirit through dance.
Selected awards 2009: AIPP Celebrating Women in Photography 2009: Mobius Advertising Awards 2021: Finalist, Olive Cotton Award, Tweed Regional Gallery, NSW 2024: Finalist, Fisher's Ghost Art Award, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney 2024: Finalist, Exploration 24, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne 2025: Winner, Martin Kantor Portrait Prize, Ballarat International Foto Biennale
Exhibitions
Solo
2008: Strip Jack Naked, B.Kidd & V.Dowzer, Format Furniture, Melbourne 2009: 59.5 (A.K.A. 100 Great Outfits), B.Kidd & V.Dowzer, Cose Impanema, Melbourne 2020, to 20 September: #STYLE, Frankston Arts Centre 2023: Through Her Breath, MARS Gallery, Melbourne 2023: Through Her Breath, Open Program Ballarat International Foto Biennale 2024: Through Her Breath, Montsalvat Arts Centre, Melbourne 2025: Sea Lion Sisters, Frankston Arts Centre
Group 1998: National Portrait Gallery, London. 2006: National Portrait Gallery, London. Chinese Connections 2008: Strip Jack Naked, Bronwyn Kidd & Virginia Dowzer, Format Furniture, Flinders Lane, Melbourne 2008: William and Winifred Bowness Prize, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne. 2009: 59.5 (Aka 100 Great Outfits), Melbourne, Cose Impanema - Collins Street, Melbourne 2011, 25 May–10 June: Celebrating Woman in Photography. HeadOn Photo Festival, Art Est. Gallery Studio 4, Leichhardt 2016, 5 March–31 July: 200 Years of Australian Fashion, National Gallery of Victoria 2019, 22 September–30 November: Homage to Style, Living Arts Space, Bendigo 2020, August: Frankston Art Space 2021, 16 July - 19 September: 2019 Olive Cotton Award for Photographic Portraiture. Tweed Regional Gallery 2023/24, 10 December–11 February: 33rd Linden Postcard Show. Linden New Art, St Kilda 2024, 22 June–5 July: Fifty Squared Art Prize Exhibition. Brunswick Street Gallery, Fitzroy 2024: Exploration 24, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne 2025, 6–28 September: Current Lander-Se, Red Hill, Victoria 2025, 1–23 November: Ember. Lander-Se, Red Hill, Victoria 2025 Identity: Quiet Acts. Satellite Projects
Collections Hardy Amies National Portrait Gallery, London
Works Publications about Bronwyn Kidd
Professional Photographer, Collectors Edition 2010, ‘300 Secrets to success’ page 59. British Journal of Photography, 18.11.98, ‘Printers present’ page 17.
Publications of photographs
Selected editorial Fashion Trend Magazine Australia. Issue 31. ‘Dynasty’ Cover, pages, Fashion Trend Magazine Australia. Issue 23. ‘Queen’ Cover, pages 66–77 Inclusive. Fashion Trend Magazine Australia. Issue 15, ISSN 1832-6811. ‘Envy’ Cover, pages 102–111. Who Magazine, Dec.9, 2013. ISSN 1832-6811 Dave Hughes and Kate Langbroek, pages 48–49. Who Magazine, 26 June 2006.
Advertising campaigns Victorian Racing Club 2015, Playground of Racing Royalty, with Grey Advertising. Melbourne Writers Festival: Where Stories Meet. Agency: J.Walter Thompson Melbourne. L’Oréal Olay
External links Official Website "Time With JOAN" Photographs, interviews and videos record Bronwyn Kidd portrait photoshoots of significant subjects
References