Me and Sybil
1975
Medium
gelatin silver photograph
Measurements
10.9 × 10.8 cm (image) 21.5 × 16.4 cm (sheet)
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Sybil Gibb and Rupert Duffy in memory of Viva Gibb through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2019
© Sybil Gibb and Rupert Duffy in memory of Jillian Viva Gibb
Gallery location
Special Exhibitions Gallery
Ground Level, NGV International
About this work
Viva Gibb received a diploma of art from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 1965. She then honed her painting skills under Australian artist John Brack at the National Gallery School, where she later earned a postgraduate diploma in printmaking in 1974. Gibb initially used photography as a basis for creating screenprints in the early 1970s, but soon came to appreciate photographs as a means of expression in themselves. Deeply committed to feminism and local activism, she intertwined her personal life with her art, often featuring her children and herself in her work. Every image Gibb made was a statement, reflecting art historian Cornelia Butler’s sentiment that ‘the personal is political, and all representation is political’.
Artwork Details
Place/s of Execution
West Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria
Inscription
inscribed in pencil on reverse l.c.: Me + Sybil '75
Accession Number
2019.88
Department
Australian Photography
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Professor AGL Shaw AO Bequest