In the late 1980s, thirty-something Bill Henson was spending so much time in New York that the waitress at notorious late-night jazz bar Bradley’s in Greenwich Village would remember his favourite tipple.

“I’d spend hours after dark taking photographs around Times Square, drop off the film to be processed at a 24-hour lab in midtown, then head to Bradley’s. Perhaps around three in the morning I’d pick up my processed negatives and head back to the Algonquin and sleep,” recalls Henson, who at 68 is one of Australia’s most renowned artists.