Barbara Hanrahan is known as a writer and printmaker. Born during the Second World War, Hanrahan grew up in an all-women household in Adelaide. She spent much of her career between England and Australia, studying, working, teaching, and exhibiting. For Hanrahan artmaking and writing were complimentary endeavours. She wrote fifteen novels and produced hundreds of prints, her work based on her own experiences and shaped by a feminist perspective.

Hanrahan studied at the Adelaide Teachers College and enrolled in evening classes in printmaking with German émigré artists Udo Sellbach and Karin Schepers at the South Australian School of Art. In 1963 Hanrahan moved to London, continuing her studies at the Central School of Art, and from this time lived mostly in England, returning periodically to Australia, until moving permanently back to Adelaide in the early 1980s. Upon her return Hanrahan became a member of the Australian Women’s Art Movement and the Australian Women's Art Register.

Hanrahan was a highly skilled printmaker who created hundreds of editions throughout her life. In contrast to her sophisticated use of printmaking techniques, her imagery can be raw and urgent, and she utilised a faux naïve style of exaggerated gestures and expressive colour to convey emotive states. At a time when stories and images of everyday life from a female perspective were uncommon, Hanrahan’s subjects and themes resonated with women. She made visible taboos of female experience and voiced deeply personal and traumatising events. One of the last prints she made before her death in 1991 was Generations 1991. This work features a man and a woman on either side of a child depicted within their conjoined hand. A celestial female creature hovers above, depicted with what appears to be an unborn child. The adult figures have distinct, heavy tears on their faces as well as across their bodies. The image is deeply mournful and reflective, and while its subject is autobiographical, its theme is universal and affirms the shared experiences of women.

Hanrahan exhibited widely during her lifetime and received several awards and fellowships from the Australia Council for the Arts. Her works have been included in numerous survey exhibitions and been the subject of special exhibitions. Her diaries were published posthumously in 1998 and her biography published in 2010. The Barbara Hanrahan Fellowship for South Australian writers was established in Hanrahan's memory in 1994. Hanrahan’s work is held all state and national institutions and the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide both hold large collections of her works. The UNSW Art Collection holds eleven prints by Hanrahan dating from 1966 to 1991.

FEATURED WORKS FROM THE UNSW ART COLLECTION

RESOURCES

The strangeness of the ordinary: the art and life of Barbara Hanrahan - ABC

A very personal interview with Barbara Hanrahan - ABC

Barbara Hanrahan – Australian Dictionary of Biography

Barbara Hanrahan: a biography by Annette Stewart

The Diaries of Barbara Hanrahan edited by Elaine Lindsay