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Michel Lawrence
Born	(1948-01-01) 1 January 1948 Kings Cross, New South Wales, Australia
Nationality	Australian
Known for	Photography

Michel Lawrence (born 1948) is an Australian portrait photographer and documentary director. Lawrence was born in Kings Cross, New South Wales and is best known for his two photographic books, 'Framed: Photographs of Australian Artists'; and 'All of Us', documenting the multicultural makeup of Australia.

Biography

Lawrence has worked as a newspaper journalist and political columnist at The Australian; a publisher of Australia’s first skateboard magazine, Slicks, a Manager of the legendary Australian electric folk group, The Bushwackers and then a longer stint in advertising, culminating as Australian Chairman of the multi-national advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson.

Lawrence matriculated from Camberwell Grammar School in Melbourne and won a place at La Trobe University in its first year, becoming the foundation editor of the student newspaper Rabelais, now in its 49th year of publication (which he also named) and the foundation editor of the student annual magazine, Strobe.

On leaving university, Lawrence bagan work as a journalist at the then relatively new national daily newspaper, Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian. At News Ltd Lawrence worked for the Sunday Australian and The Sunday Telegraph as a political columnist covering both state and federal politics including the landslide of Gough Whitlam’s rejuvenated Labor Party in 1972.

While still a journalist he founded and edited Australia’s first skateboard magazine in 1974, Slicks.

Lawrence was recruited to manage the iconic Australian electric folk group, The Bushwackers, departing in 1976 with the band for an extended 18-month tour of Europe including England, Scotland and Wales, and recording their album Murrumbidgee with producer John Wood at Morgan’s Studios, London.

Returning to Australia in 1978, Lawrence founded the design studio Swell Productions which became the advertising agency Burrows Doble Lawrence with Art Director Bill Burrows and agency Account Director Ed Doble. The agency was sold to the 1980 Australian Agency of the Year, Darcy MacManus & Masius and Lawrence was headhunted to the Australian retail agency Mattingly and Partners as its Executive Creative Director. During this period he was also President of the Melbourne Art Directors’ Club, and Victorian Chair of the AFA.

In 1990 Lawrence was appointed Executive Creative Director of the multi-national agency J. Walter Thompson, eventually being appointed Managing Director of the Melbourne Office in 1998 and then Australian Chairman a year later.

Exhibitions, Collections and Bibliography

During a period of 10 years while working at both Mattingly and JWT Lawrence embarked on a personal project to photograph Australia’s most important postwar modernists including Sir Sidney Nolan, Lloyd Rees, Arthur Boyd, John Olsen, Tim Storrier, Bert Tucker, John Perceval and others. This became an exhibition at Australian Galleries Melbourne and Sydney in 1996. Two years later the exhibition was published as the book, Framed: Photographs of Australian Artists, published by Hardie Grant ISBN 1-86-498017-6. The book’s cover portrait of Lloyd Rees had previously been a cover of the Sydney Morning Herald/Age magazine Good Weekend, illustrating an article on the much-loved artist by Janet Hawley winning her a coveted Walkley Award. Hawley also contributed the introduction to the book Framed.

Lawrence’s second book, All of Us ISBN 1-92-121519-4 included photographs of people born in 200 other countries, but who were now living in Australia. The project was inspired by the racial riots in Sydney’s Cronulla Beach. All of Us was published by Scribe Books and the portraits exhibited at Federation Square Melbourne and later in a tour of Indian cities.

The All of Us project, was launched at Federation Square by the Victorian Premier, John Brumby for Australia Day 2008. All of Us was funded by Federal and State governments along with a number of private benefactors.

A subsequent project, Indian Aussies was commissioned by The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and is still touring India after its launch in New Delhi three years ago.

Lawrence’s photographs are held in numerous private and public collections, including The National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, The National Library in Canberra, The Queensland Art Gallery (QAGOMA), The Museum of Modern Art at Heide, Melbourne University and a number of regional galleries across Australia.

Lawrence’s collection of photographs of important Australian musicians, actors and performers is in the permanent collection of the Melbourne Performing Arts Museum.

In 2012 Lawrence's production company Miro Films began producing the television arts program InsideArt, which has now run four seasons across Australian public broadcasters in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth. In 2014, InsideArt was voted Most Outstanding Australian Arts Program across the public broadcasting network.