Olympia : photographs by Polixeni Papapetrou

Susan van Wyk and Olympia Nelson with Robert Nelson and Solomon Nelson. Melbourne : National Gallery of Victoria, 2019. Quarto, quarter cloth over illustrated boards, pp. 165, illustrated. New copy, in shrinkwrap.

Catalogue of exhibition held at NGV from 27 September 2019 – 15 March 2020.

Polixeni Papapetrou was a singular Australian artist, known for her compelling photographs that show childhood as a complex realm of imagination and storytelling.

The birth of her daughter, Olympia, precipitated what was to be a lifelong shift in Papapetrou’s practice and she began to work closer to home, photographing her children, first Olympia and later son Solomon. Olympia was central to the artist’s work, and over a twenty-year period assumed the position of muse and, ultimately, of collaborator.