Julia Gillard unveils ‘visibly different’ portrait

Julia Gillard unveils her ‘visibly different’ portrait, hopes children one day won’t think twice about its subject matter.

Julia Gillard at the official portrait unveiling event at Parliament House. Picture: Gary Ramage.

A “visibly different” portrait of Australia’s first female prime minister Julia Gillard has been unveiled at Parliament House, which the subject hopes children will one day not think twice about.

The realist style portrait by award-winning artist Vincent Fantauzzo depicts Ms Gillard close up with a thoughtful expression, and made its debut in the building’s Member’s Hall as Bill Shorten, Tanya Plibersek and former prime minister Tony Abbott watched on.

Mr Abbott congratulated Ms Gillard on the painting, noting Mr Fantauzzo had done a “fabulous job”, and said “one day” he would have his own portrait commissioned.

Ms Gillard said she had “mixed emotions” about having the portrait done because being an MP for her had been about purpose, policy and “getting big things that mattered done for the nation”.

“I was always less attracted to the pomp that goes with being in a place like this and I put in my mind getting my portrait done in that category of pomp and ceremony, and I wasn’t particularly interested in doing it,” Ms Gillard said.

“(But) finally, there was a day when Nina, who works in my office, came to me with a very serious expression on her face and said, ‘you know, you ought to get that portrait done before you look a hell of a lot older than you did when you were prime minister’.”

There was one story in particular Ms Gillard, who is now chair of beyondblue, was keen for the portrait to tell, which was that she was “different from every prime minister who had come before”.

“That I was the first woman to serve in this role. I wanted the portrait to be visibly different to any other portrait that had gone before and I think when you see it you’ll see that it is,” Ms Gillard said.

“It’s my dearest hope that as those school children visit Parliament House not this year or next year but in the years to come, in the future, where they cast their eye across portraits of prime ministers, when they learn a little bit about Australia’s history, they do stop at this one and say to themselves ‘that’s different’ and then run their eye back up and think ‘maybe it’s because it’s the first woman’.

“And then maybe think to themselves ‘gee it’s kind of amazing that it took that long for there to be a first woman prime minister’. And then think to themselves ‘we don’t need to worry about any of that anymore because it’s so normal, so common for a woman to be the prime minister of Australia no one even bothers to remark on it any more, it just happens as the cycles of politics twist and turn’. So there are even numbers of male prime ministers and female prime ministers.”

Mr Fantauzzo, who is a six-time Archibald Prize finalist and a winner of the Doug Moran Portrait Prize, said had always been “very inspired” by Ms Gillard and the painting of her portrait had been “something really special to me”.

“I didn’t know what to expect and I was a little nervous,” Mr Fantauzzo said.

“Normally I make the subject of my portrait feel comfortable, but it was Julia that made me feel comfortable, and I think she does that because she listens to people and she cares about their opinions and what they have to say.

“I wanted to capture Julia as someone as a game-changer, someone proud, humble, and really passionate about Australians. So hopefully we’ve done a good job. And you did the hard work. It was an easy job for me. I loved it.”

Guests at the unveiling included Mr Fantauzzo’s wife, actor Asher Keddie, former independent MP Tony Windsor, outgoing Liberal MP Julia Banks and Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals leader Michael McCormack.

A number of Ms Gillard’s staff past and present were also in the audience.

The last portrait of a prime minister to be added to parliament’s historic memorials collection was of John Howard in 2010.