Portrait of a Prime Minister
Perhaps because of my tenure in America as it is customary there to address former leaders in the present tense, upon meeting Mr Hawke for a portrait shoot I said, “Prime Minister Hawke could you . . . .” – and he cut in with – “Ahhh just call me Bob, what should I call you?”
“Well, Mr Samartis will do actually”, I deadpanned. I couldn’t resist.
And with that his beamed his thousand watt smile and the charm offensive began. “Good one Niko” he said, I like that”.
I asked him if it was true of what I had read that he knew he would be Prime Minister at the age of 15 and replied with a simple “Yep”.
It was more a stare down actually – and there I saw that steely resolve that navigated him all the way from his childhood through as the leader of the labour union all the way to a Head Of State. He was a research officer for the ACTU initially. I’m a stickler for research so I appreciated the breadth of his intellect, and I think he appreciated that I too had done my homework.
As the afternoon went on, he threw down a few beers and belted out the full rendition of Waltzing Matilda.
All of it.
And he whispered at just the right mark in the song for dramatic effect.
“And his ghost may be heard if you pass by that billabong. You’ll come a Waltzing Matilda with me”
And then he threw down a few more beers.
What else do we require from a Head Of State?
Jeffrey Smart
Frank Jeffrey Edson Smart, 1921-2013 influenced a great number of artists.
And it is well known that Smart has preferred not to discuss his style. And that’s pretty, well . . . . smart.
“I’m not a narrative painter, I don’t try to tell a story”. He would tell anyone who was gullible to believe it.
He did love repeating Ben Nicholson’s words though, ‘Painting is a form of prayer”.
I of course always wondered at his usual choice of grey sky with just a pop of soft light on his landscapes or subject.
‘Witches Hats’. Boy Charlton Pool. My ode to the precisionist, the Australian painter, purveyor of the ‘Golden Mean’.
It was taken during Mardi Gras week some time ago.
Joan Didion
Joan Didion once wrote – “We tell ourselves stories in order to live”. Well, I think we take pictures in order to stop time. Because time it seems, goes one way – memory another.
As the acclaimed personal commentator of the classics as ‘The White Album’ and The Year of Magical Thinking’, I wonder what she would say at her sunglasses fetching $27 000.00 US at an auction following her death.
Portrait of Giorgio Oscar Hilton Samartis – taken with a simple iPhone one afternoon in the sun, and ended up hanging in the National Gallery, Canberra – Australia. It was entered into the National Portrait prize in a moment of hubris as a lark and was selected as a finalist.
Hubris – 1. Diffidence – 0.
The Best Of Us
Travelling throughout Greece in my childhood, my father would pack us all into a red 70’s VW and roar through the Peloponnese, Athens, Patra, Thessaloniki, Sunion and the islands. We would visit the Temple of Poseidon, Delphi, Penteli – where Davelis Cave is located and that brilliant pure white marble was used to construct the Parthenon and its sculptures . . . and my mind would be immersed in all those churches and statues and iconography.
We were intrepid, and by the end of the long hot summer, exhausted. However it all made an indelible mark on me of course and with time also fell in love with the work of Herbert List and George Hoyningen-Huene and others. From there I felt I had permission to create my own artworks. So it is dad that I thank for his curiosity, and for making sure it was imbedded in my experience and spirit. He had seen it all before, however thought it important to pass it all on to future generations.
He was a kind man.
He planted trees under whose shade he did not expect to sit.
He was the best of us.
The Great American Metaphor
One of my most favourite pictures was taken at my Hollywood home one afternoon as Gretchen was relaxing on the pink Louis XVI couch utilising only natural light during our shoot for American Vogue.
She was once featured on the cover of Vanity Fair, dubbed the ‘It Girl of the Nineties’.
The brilliant actress Gretchen Mol has has an acting range matched only by the breadth of the American continent itself.
She plays equal measure doe eyed American sweetheart – passive in the role of a girlfriend in the film, ‘Donnie Brasco’ and at the same time,
she roared in her tour de force as a doomed, murderous, incestuous, prostitute and lover to gangster and her son, Jimmy Darmody in the acclaimed series, ‘Boardwalk Empire’.
Perhaps a fitting metaphor of America itself.
Jeff Koons
Perhaps the art world’s greatest artist, the ebullient Mr Koons and myself in Faliro, Greece.
Here we are admiring his modernist geometric work on the yacht, ‘Guilty’.
I was commissioned to photograph the yacht and the artist and that was one of my most ever prized assignments.
The first time I noticed this geometric style was in a humble bus stop in good ‘ol La Perouse at the mouth of Botany Bay, where Captain Cook first sailed into Australia – the interior is painted in what is referred to as ‘Razzel Dazzle’. A style of high contrast angular stripes created by artist and navel officer Norman Wilkinson during WWII. The design was an attempt to confuse torpedoists looking through a periscope. Jeff Koons adapted that style for his patron Dakis Joannou’s 16 million dollar yacht, ‘Guilty’.
The inauguration of the boat was presented in Hydra with Jeff waking us through the process over dinner, drinks, sun bathing, swimming at local haunts over 3 days. It was a masterclass of modern art, a three day discussion. He does know what he is talking about, after all his work has sold for a world record auction price for a living artist – Jeff Koons’ Rabbit’, which sold for US$100 million.
“In the near future Jeff, I kinda want to move into the finer arts like you – what advice do you have?”
“Well Nick, keep curious, keep interested, put your heart into your work, and always make sure you are devoted.”
From La Perouse to Hydra, from public transport to super-yachts, embrace the range.
Omar Sharif
Expert bridge player, star of ‘Doctor Zhivago’ and ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ and quite simply a man with the most beautiful manners, that I have ever met.
The elegant Mr Omar Sharif. Here in Cairo, at the end of an eight day wedding celebration of our mutual friend, Rafic Said.
“Working gets in the way of living” – he said.
The Artist Formerly Known As . . .
The time I was Prince’s exclusive photographer and had to sign a non disclosure agreement for 10 years.
And that ran out 5 years ago . . . . . . . yet I wouldn’t say a word for the next 20.
However I can disclose that if I did, it would be all good.
The Comedienne
Funny girl, Isla Fisher, at 5th and Sunset Studios, Santa Monica, California.
From Home and Away, to The Wedding Crashers, to the The Great Gatsby.
Over 20 films and one very talented husband, aka Sacha Baron Cohen . . . . . aka Borat.
Evan Rachel Wood
American actress and activist, a black belt in Taekwondo and former fiancé of Marilyn Manson . . . . Evan Rachel Wood.
Photographed for W Magazine in a Hollywood hotel room. She deleted her Twitter account after describing Kobe Bryant as a ‘rapist’ on a post after his death. Born to a family of actors and directors. I believe the beguiling Evan Rachel Wood just may be be one of the best actors of her generation.
Akira Isogawa
One of the most brilliant Australian designers in Australia’s history wasn’t even born here.
Larry Gagosian
Famed American art dealer of Armenian parents Larry Gagosian developed a reputation for staging extraordinary exhibitions of contemporary art for artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol.
In 2022 he purchased one of the Marilyn Monroe paintings by Andy Warhol for a record breaking $200 million, making it the most expensive piece of 20th century art. A long way from once working as Mike Ovitz’s secretary and getting his start in the art business by selling posters near the campus of UCLA.
I knew him also as the guy across the road. Larry.
He at 4 East 75th street, me at 5 East 75th street. New York, New York.
The exterior of my building on 75th was used as Mr Sheffield’s mansion in the T.V. show ‘The Nanny’ so for a while at that time
I was known as Mr Sheffield. Funny that, I’m much more relatable than Maxwell I thought, I’m much more a Sylvia.
Naomi Watts
Naomi Watts. New York City. American Vogue.
It was the vaudevillian, Eddie Cantor who originally said, “It takes around 20 years to become an overnight success.”
Naomi Watts inverted the idiom and did it in around 10.
So for film buffs it was her ‘break out’ role in the David Lynch psychological thriller, ‘Mulholland Drive’ that endeared her to us.
And now, to date, Naomi Watts has nearly 100 acting credits to her name. She played the coveted Faye Wray role in King Kong like a superwoman and has transcended the moniker from being a great Australian actress to simply being a great actress.
When reached out to recently and asked whether ‘that scene’ in the Lynch film was real or simulated she didn’t give the customary,
‘I can neither confirm nor deny’, she cleverly replied . . . . . .
