George Noel Gittoes, (born 7 December 1949) is an Australian artist, documentary filmmaker, photographer, and writer. For the greater part of his career he has focused on human conflict, but always as a personal eye-witness. Since 1986 this has meant constant travel to war zones and areas of conflict, including Nicaragua, the Philippines, Somalia, Cambodia, Western Sahara and Algeria, the Middle East (including Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon), South Africa, Rwanda, Mozambique, Bosnia, Northern Ireland, China and Tibet, Bougainville, East Timor, Congo, and Iraq (both before and after the 2003 war), and troubled areas in the USA. Since 2007 he has worked particularly in Pakistan, Afghanistan and, since the Russian invasion in 2022, Ukraine. Having been a co-founder of the Yellow House Artist Collective in Sydney in 1970, in 2011 he opened a Yellow House Jalalabad in Afghanistan. Gittoes has worked in a number of media, including drawing, painting, photography, and film making. His work is held in major galleries around Australia, including the National Gallery in Canberra and the Australian War Memorial.

Gittoes has directed around 20 films, as well as collaborating on a number of Pashto-language dramas in Pakistan. His first wife, Gabrielle Dalton, collaborated as co-producer with Gittoes on many of his early films. His second wife, Hellen Rose, has been travelling with him and collaborating with him on many of his films made in conflict zones since around 2009. His most recent films have been filmed in Ukraine and in Afghanistan, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Early life and education

George Noel Gittoes was born in Sydney, New South Wales, on 7 December 1949, the son of public servant, Claude Gittoes (who eventually became Secretary of the NSW Department of Main Roads), and potter Joyce Gittoes (née Halpin). and his seven-years older sister, Pamela, also a painter.

Gittoes grew up in Rockdale, New South Wales, where at the age of 11 he would stage puppet shows in his backyard. When they became popular, he started charging for them, donating the proceeds to the Red Cross., he transferred to Kingsgrove North High School for his final two years. At school Gittoes became interested in Islamic cultures, and under his influence his art class specialised in Islamic art for the NSW Higher School Certificate in 1967. Gittoes produces, directs, and shoots the films, while Rose co-produces, acts, and creates the soundtracks. For Gittoes, Briebauer’s death was “a shattering experience”, memories of which would recur in his darker works.

A keen surfer, Gittoes travelled for a while in a caravan up and down the south coast of NSW. Eventually he settled in Bundeena, New South Wales, a village between sea and bush south of Sydney. For a time abandoning the politically driven art inspired by Joe Delaney, Gittoes produced a large series of photographs, drawings and paintings, eventually leading to a short film, Rainbow Way (1977). These images were abstract, using ideas drawn from both Islamic and Aboriginal art (in the latter case, especially the creation myth of the Rainbow Serpent), but also created out of direct observation of the effects of light underwater. He also experimented for a time with holograms and with computer-generated images, working with CSIRO scientist Zoltan Hegedus and Melbourne artist Paula Dawson, and Jack Alexander of the University of NSW. Art historian Gabrielle Dalton collaborated with him on the film, and they later married. Gittoes’ interest in Aboriginal art and performance, which began with meeting dancers from Mornington Island in 1972, led in 1977 to a trip to the Northern Territory and Western Australia. Martin Wesley-Smith composed music for the film.

Gittoes and Dalton were keen to bring art and performance to a wide audience. In 1979 they formed the environmental theatre group, Theatre Reaching Environments Everywhere (TREE), with Martin Wesley-Smith, Ronaldo Cameron, and Ian Fredericks. Between 1979 and 1984 TREE presented a number of huge theatrical events, mostly on beaches around Sydney, involving hundreds of local people. Gavin Fry has described these as “some of the most complete and spectacular art performances Australia has seen”. Gittoes and Dalton made a film called Wattamolla that was shown at the International Dance Film and Videotape Festival and Conference in New York in June 1981.

Around the same time, keen to return to social issues, Gittoes made Refined fire, a highly experimental but also “truly apocalyptic” film about misuse of fossil fuels and the danger of nuclear war. Now, in partnership with Dalton, Gittoes turned to documentary film-making, first with Tracks of the Rainbow (1984), a film about a group of Aboriginal children from New South Wales travelling north to meet with tribal elders from Mornington Island. This was followed in 1985 with a trilogy of films about life, cultural confrontation, and art in the Northern Territory: Warriors and lawmen (about conflict between Aboriginal people and the white legal system), Frontier women, and Unbroken spirit.

Broadening horizons, 1986–1993

Since 1986, Gittoes career has particularly focused on areas of war and conflict. He and Dalton conceived of a series of films on women who were active in war zones, titles Where she Dares. In 1986 Gittoes went to Nicaragua, intending to make a film about NBC reporter Jamie Gangel. When that proved politically awkward, he turned his attention to four women Sandinista fighters who also wrote poetry. The result was The Bullets of the Poets (1986).

This was to have been followed in 1989 by a film about women political prisoners in the Philippines, but changes to tax rules in Australia meant that funding dried up. Nevertheless, Gittoes made a number of powerful paintings focusing especially on the numerous atrocities being committed in the Philippines.

The success of the Northern Territory and Nicaragua works led to an invitation from the Wollongong City Art Gallery to be an artist-in-residence, working initially at the BHP steelworks at Port Kembla. This led to a long series titled Heavy Industry, completed between 1989 and 1992, encompassing steelworks and mines in Port Kembla, Broken Hill, Newcastle (NSW), Whyalla (South Australia) and Ipswich (Queensland). As well as portraying the giant machinery of an industry in decline, many of the works were sensitive portraits of ordinary workers. One depiction of the Abedare Colliery in Ipswich, Queensland, Open Cut, won the Wynne Prize for landscape art in 1993.

Also in this period, Gittoes won the 1992 Blake Prize for Religious Art for Ancient Prayer, a portrait of his old friend Ronaldo Cameron in the advanced stages of motor neurone disease.

The Gulf War of 1991 produced in Gittoes a strong sense of outrage, leading to a series of etchings, Empire State Suite, and a major painting, Baghdad Starry Night. It also inspired a new belief that the artist could “be an independent witness – to challenge the image making of the mass media."

Peacekeeping artist, 1993–2001

Lieutenant General John Grey, Chief of the General Staff of the Australian Army, had been impressed by the Heavy Industry series and, with the Army keen to publicise its expanding role in peacekeeping, the Army collaborated with the Australian War Memorial to send Gittoes to two areas where large numbers of Australian peacekeepers were serving, Somalia and Cambodia. Although not appointed an Official War Artist, he travelled with the support of both institutions to document the Australian role, while retaining his artistic freedom.

In March 1993 travelled to Somalia, where an Australian battalion was serving with the US-led Unified Task Force (UNITAF). Years of drought and civil war had led to collapse of internal order, and the peacekeepers were needed to make it possible to distribute humanitarian aid. While producing many iconic images of Australian soldiers, Gittoes also turned his attention to the plight of the local civilians. He also began to make drawings with a large block of text on one side, telling the story of the individuals depicted.

Soon afterwards, in May and June 1993, Gittoes visited Australia’s other major peacekeeping operation at the time, in Cambodia. After two decades of genocide and civil war, Australian diplomatic leadership had helped achieve a peace agreement, leading to free elections. Australia provided signallers to the resulting UN operation, the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), and UNTAC’s force commander, Lieutenant General John Sanderson. Gittoes documented the activities of the Australian signallers, and painted a portrait of Sanderson (now in the Australian War Memorial), but was also deeply moved by the stoic endurance of Cambodian victims of the war, including the many landmine victims.

In early 1994, again with the support of Lieutenant General Grey, Gittoes visited a series of peacekeeping missions where Australians were serving. Under Minister for Foreign Affairs Gareth Evans, this period was a highpoint of Australian peacekeeping. Gittoes went first to Western Sahara, where Australian signallers were part of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO). Afterwards he travelled to the Middle East, visiting Australians with the US-led Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) in the Sinai, and military observers serving with the UN Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) in Israel, Syria and Lebanon. Visiting Hebron in the aftermath of the Hebron massacre of February 1994 further convinced him of the importance of the artist as witness and counterpoint to official accounts. After Rwanda he travelled to Mozambique to visit Australian de-miners with the UN Operation in Mozambique (ONUMOZ).

Gittoes continued to visit peacekeeping operations and scenes of conflict, though no longer always under the auspices of the Army. In 1996 he made a privately funded trip to Sarajevo in Bosnia, to document the effects of the siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War. The following year he presented a major installation on Kibeho in Kassel, Germany, and later travelled to Northern Ireland in towards the end of the Troubles.

In1998 Gittoes had a residency at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, and also travelled to other parts of China and to Tibet. He also travelled to Bougainville, which had fought a long civil war in an effort to break away from Papua New Guinea, working with Australian members of the multinational, Australian-led Peace Monitoring Group.

Gittoes had encountered land mine victims in Nicaragua in 1986 and Cambodia in 1993. Now, in association with the Australian Network of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and support from the Australian government, Gittoes travelled to Thailand, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, East Timor, Congo and Rwanda, leading to a 2000 exhibition, “Minefields”, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. In 2001 he travelled again to South Africa, Israel and Palestine.

After 9/11, 2001–2006

Gittoes made Soundtrack to War (2004) after two long stays in Baghdad. The film was based on interviews with young American soldiers about what music they played as they burnt and bombed the city and the impact of death on them. He also recorded music of Baghdad residents, as well as music created by African American soldiers, who made up most of the force there. In 2005, Soundtrack to War screened at the Sydney and Berlin Film Festivals, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, as well as in cinemas in Europe, the US, and Australia. Seventeen scenes in Soundtrack were used by Michael Moore used 17 scenes from Gittoes' film in his 2004 film Fahrenheit 9/11. Two films were made there: Love City Jalalabad (2013) and Snow Monkey (2015).

In 2018 he made White Light, about violence in Chicago, a feature documentary about the people involved in gun violence in Chicago, which was screened on ABC Television. is also about gun and gang violence in Chicago, particularly on May Block. It follows the lives of both the perpetrators and the bereaved families of the victims. Three of the subjects of the film were killed during the making of the film, which started filming in 2018, shot by Gettoes, Waqar Alam, and Hellen Rose, who was also responsible for the music and production. No Bad Guys was screened at the Melbourne International Documentary Festival, where it won Best Australian Director; Bridge of Peace Film Festival, where it won Best Documentary; and at the Sydney Underground Film Festival. Gittoes also created many artworks, and the couple collaborated with Ukrainian artist Ave Libertatemaveamor on new works, which were later shown in an exhibition titled George Gittoes: Ukraine Guernica at the Hazelhurst Arts Centre in Sydney. In 2022, Gittoes and Libertatemaveamor collaborated to produce a huge mural, Kiss of Death, on the outside wall of the Irpin House of Culture in Irpin, near Kyiv. The kiss refers to the portrayal of Putin "as a hideous insect-like creature clumsily kissing his contortionist lover, grossly 'feeding off each other'". The two artists also created a graphic novel of the same title in 2024. The film shows many atrocities of the war, including the bombing of the House of Culture in Irpin, as Russia tries to deny that there is a distinct Ukrainian culture. and also screened at Melbourne International Film Festival; Screenwave International Film Festival in Coffs Harbour, NSW; and Salem Film Fest in Salem, Massachusetts. It also screened in competition in the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, won an award at Oniros Film Awards in New York, and was a finalist in the Bridge of Peace Awards in 2023. where they made two films: Love City Jalalabad (2013) and Snow Monkey (2015). Rose described the town as "a place lost in time due to thirty years of war and very little to do with the outside world". American performance artist Carolee Schneemann met Gittoes and Rose, and admired their work at YHJ.

Miscellaneous art works

In 2014, Gittoes was invited by Julian Assange to the Ecuadorean Embassy in London where Assange was staying. He did three small portraits of Assange titled As Game As – Ecuador Embassy, saying that he saw Assange as a kind of "Wild Colonial Boy like Ned Kelly".

Recognition and honours

In the 1990s, Gittoes was invited to speak in the US and Germany on many occasions, and had a residency at the University of Michigan.

In 2001, he was awarded the Centenary Medal, "for service as an internationally renowned artist".

In 2009, he was given an honorary doctorate in Letters by the University of New South Wales. for Snow Monkey (2015), and in 2018/9 for White Light). in November 2025, for "exposing injustice for over 45 years as a humanist artist, activist and filmmaker, for his courage to witness and confront violence in the war zones of the world, for enlisting the arts to subdue aggression and for enlivening the creative spirit to promote tolerance, respect and peace with justice".

In 2021, Rose featured in Artist Profile arts magazine.

Gittoes received honorary membership to the Australian Peacekeeper and Peacemaker Veterans' Association Inc., which holds a large archive of his photographs.

His puppet theatre made for Yellow House in 1971 was recreated for display in the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.

Film awards

  • 2021: Best Australian Director, Melbourne International Documentary Festival, for No Bad Guys
  • 2021: Best Documentary, Bridge of Peace Film Festival, for No Bad Guys

Personal life

Gittoes first married art historian Gabrielle Dalton, who produced many of his early films, when she was 23, living in an artist-run collective in the Gunnery Building in Woolloomooloo, Sydney, and he was in his 30s and already married. They re-met later when Gittoes had separated from his wife, and they got together in 2007. She accompanied him to Ayubia, Pakistan in 2010, after turning up at the airport unannounced,

  • George Gittoes: World Diary, multiple venues in NSW and Queensland (23 November 2000 – 8 July 2001)
  • White Light, Mitchell Fine Art, Brisbane (2019) then at Deakin University Art Gallery (July – August 2024)

Gittoes' 1971 etching with aquatint, The Hotel Kennedy Suite is held by the Art Gallery of Western Australia. It was gifted by Gittoes under the Commonwealth Government's Cultural Gifts Program in 2016.

Other galleries holding his work include:

  • Art Gallery of New South Wales
  • Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory
  • Powerhouse Museum
  • Queensland Art Gallery

Filmography

  • Rainbow Way (1976)
  • Warriors and Lawmen (1984)