Thought is a portrait of the artist’s niece in a distinctly Australian costume adorned with appliqued gum leaves and a gum nut belt. The sitter is pictured in a meditative pose and the evocative title of the photograph encourages an allegorical interpretation of the work. The photograph is an exhibition-size print in its original frame. Hollick entered ‘Thought’ in the Colonial Exhibition in London in 1921 and was awarded a bronze medal. src NGV

The exhibition Photography: Real and Imagined (2023-2024) examines two perspectives on photography; photography grounded in the real world, as a record, a document, a reflection of the world around us; and photography as the product of imagination, storytelling and illusion. On occasion, photography operates in both realms of the real and the imagined.

Highlighting major photographic works from the NGV Collection, including recent acquisitions on display for the very first time, Photography: Real and Imagined examines the complex, engaging and sometimes contradictory nature, of all things photographic. The NGV’s largest survey of the photography collection, the exhibition includes more than 300 works by Australian and international photographers and artists working with photo-media from the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries. / The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia