Fiona Margaret Hall

Fiona Margaret Hall, AO (born 16 November 1953) is an Australian artistic photographer and sculptor. Hall represented Australia in the 56th International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 2015.

Hall was born to Ruby Payne-Scott (a pioneer in radiophysics and radio astronomy) and telephone technician William Holman Hall in 1953 and grew up in Oatley, Sydney. She is the younger sister of the mathematical statistician and probabilist Peter Gavin Hall. Fiona Hall was taken to see the exhibition Two Decades of American Painting at the Art Gallery of New South Wales at age 14, which developed her interest in art.

Hall attended Penshurst High School. During high school, Hall briefly contemplated architecture before settling on art. She wound her way into the experimental art scene of early seventies Sydney, a time when the conventions of modern art were being radically challenged. This included objections to the classical forms of painting and sculpture leading to the use of everyday items and other expressions of art e.g. photography. During a stint with a Diploma of Painting at the East Sydney Technical School (ESTS), Hall settled into photography.

The National Art School did not offer a course in photography at this time, but Hall became a competent photographer thanks to mentoring from her painting teacher at ESTS. Hall exhibited photographs as part of the Thoughts and Images: An Exploratory Exhibition of Australian Student Photography group exhibition in 1974. Hall graduated from ESTS in 1975.

She journeyed to Europe, residing in England for two years, working as an assistant for Fay Godwin. She mounted her first solo exhibition in 1977 at London's Creative Camera Gallery. Hall briefly returned to Australia in 1978 to visit her mother and to cure her mother's illness. She displayed her first Australian solo exhibition at Church Street Photography Centre, Melbourne then moved to the United States.

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