Rod McNicol

Rodney McNicol (1946 – 8 October 2025) was an Australian photographer.

Rod McNicol
Self-portrait, 1978
Background information
Born	1946 (1946) Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Died	8 October 2025 (aged 79)

Life and career

In 1968 he left for Europe and spent the following four years travelling and working in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. He returned to Australia in 1973 and studied photography at Prahran College in 1974. In 1975 he co-founded The Photographers' Gallery and Workshop in South Yarra.^[1]

McNicol held his first exhibition (shared with Carol Jerrems) at Brummels Gallery in 1978.^[2] Later that year he moved into an old warehouse studio in Fitzroy. He lived and worked in the old daylit studio since then, refining and defining his fascination with photographic portraiture.^[3]

McNicol found his sitters from among those around him, his peers, his friends and other subjects from the rich inner-city life of his milieu. Echoing early 19th-century photographic portraiture by evoking a gentle stillness tempered by an unrelenting directness to the camera, he pared portraiture back to something of its bare essence.^[1]

McNicol studied photography at Prahran College 1970s^[4] and in 2007 he completed an Masters of Fine Art degree at Monash University.^[1]

In 2004, he won the Australian Photographic Portrait Prize^[5] at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and in 2012 he won the National Photographic Portrait Prize,^[6] held at the National Portrait Gallery (Australia). He worked in major collections including the National Gallery of Victoria, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Portrait Gallery (Australia), the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

McNicol died on 8 October 2025, at the age of 79.^[7]

Selected solo exhibitions

McNicol with Jack Charles and his portrait of Charles

• 2018 Portraits from my Village, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, Victoria.^[8]
• 2016 Rod McNicol: Memento mori, Arts Space Wodonga, Victoria^{[citation needed]}
• 2016 Rod McNicol: Memento mori, Yarra Ranges Art Museum, Victoria^{[citation needed]}
• 2015 Life and time: Portraits by Rod McNicol, National Portrait Gallery (Australia), ACT^{[citation needed]}
• 2015 Rod McNicol: Memento mori, Tweed River Art Gallery, NSW ^{[citation needed]}
• 2014 Rod McNicol: Memento mori; MAPh, Victoria^[9]
• 2009 Portraits from last century, Place Gallery, Melbourne^{[citation needed]}
• 2008 Auto-portrait, Place Gallery, Melbourne^{[citation needed]}
• 2005 Portraits from my village, Watson Place Gallery, Melbourne ^{[citation needed]}
• 1987 A Portrait, Studio 666, Paris, France^{[citation needed]}
• 1986 A Portrait, Gallery Foto-Video, Cracow, Poland^{[citation needed]}
• 1985 A Portrait, United Artists Gallery, Melbourne^{[citation needed]}
• 1978 Permanent Mirrors, Brummels Gallery, Melbourne^[10]

Collections

• "Art Gallery of NSW – Rod McNicol". Art Gallery of NSW. Retrieved 3 March 2025.
• "Rod McNicol – National Gallery of Victoria". National Gallery of Victoria. Retrieved 3 March 2025.
• "Rod McNicol – National Gallery of Australia". National Gallery of Australia. Retrieved 3 March 2025.
• "Rod McNicol – National Portrait Gallery". National Portrait. Retrieved 3 March 2025.
• National Library of Australia, Canberra^{[citation needed]}
• Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, France^{[citation needed]}
• City of Port Phillip, Melbourne^{[citation needed]}
• City of Yarra, Melbourne^{[citation needed]}
• Gold Coast City Art Gallery, Gold Coast, Queensland^{[citation needed]}
• "MAPh – Rod McNicol". MAPh (Museum of Australian Photography). Retrieved 4 March 2025.
• Tweed River Gallery, NSW^{[citation needed]}
• Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville, Queensland^{[citation needed]}

Publications

• McNicol, Rod (2014) "The Existential Portrait", MGA^[11]
• McNicol, Rod (2022), Rod McNicol A Portrait, M.33, ISBN 978-0-6484899-7-9^[12]
• McNicol, Rod (2024) "BRUMMELS 1978", Light Of Day Books^[13]

Video interviews

• "Portrait Story: Rod McNicol – Life and Times". National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 3 March 2025.
• "Portrait Story: Rod McNicol and Jack Charles". National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 3 March 2025.
• "Rod McNicol on Photographing Jack Charles". National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 3 March 2025.
• "Rod McNicol's Decades in Photographic Portraiture". ABC Arts. June 2023. Retrieved 3 March 2025.
• "Rod McNicol Artist Talk: A Portrait Pilgrimage". Yarra City Arts. 10 July 2023. Retrieved 3 March 2025.
• "Rod McNicol: A Portrait Revisited". Lens Culture. Retrieved 3 March 2025.
• "Rod McNicol and his Portraits", 2024, a Light Of Day film by Yanni Florence^[3]