Classic histories
As
the work of Max Dupain has grown to become emblematic of Australia,
some of this nation’s other photographers have been pushed
into the background somewhat. One of those is Harold Cazneaux,
regarded as Australia’s greatest pictorialist photographer;
a pioneer whose style had an indelible impact on the development
of photographic history in this country. This month however, the
Art Gallery of NSW brings Cazeneaux back into the limelight in
a new exhibition highlighting the scope of his work.
As a regular participator in national and international
exhibitions, Cazneaux was unfaltering in his desire to contribute
to the discussion about the photography of his times. He created
some of the most memorable images of the early 20th Century.
For many years, Cazneaux’s prints were exhibited
in shows organised by the London Salon of Photography (1911 to
1952) and later included in the Royal Photographic Society of
Great Britain’s annual salons. In 1921 he was elected a
member of the London Salon and in 1937 he was the first Australian
to be conferred an Honorary Fellowship by the Royal Photographic
Society.
Beyond his photographic oeuvre, Cazneaux was also
a prolific writer. As a correspondent for Photograms of
the Year (UK) for more than 20 years, he was the international
voice of Australian photography. He was official photographer
for Sydney Ure Smith’s lifestyle magazine The Home from
1920 to 1941. And he was commissioned to produce images for a
number of Ure Smith’s publications including Sydney Surfing
(1929), The Bridge Book (1930), The Sydney Book (1931) and The
Australian Native Bear Book (1932).
Harold
Cazneaux: artist in photography will include more than 100
of his iconic images. They have been carefully devised around
key themes to explore the breadth and depth of his work such as
landscape, portraits, artists’ portraits, the harbour and
the city. They have been arranged chronologically, charting the
visual and conceptual development of his methodology. From The
Orphan Sisters (1906) to The Bamboo Blind (c.1915) one can clearly
see the transition in Cazneaux’s style from a moody and
darkly rendered vision of narrative allusion to a more naturalistic
print of sunlights effects. The use of light was a defining characteristic
of Cazneaux’s later work and in 1916 he and others formed
the Sydney Camera Circle, establishing the so-called ‘Sunshine
School’ of photography. The Circle was created for a number
of important reasons: it embraced the particularities of Australian
light and landscape, and was a move away from the English-inspired
darker imagery dominating photographic practice at that time.
The Art Gallery of New South Wales has one of the
finest collections of Cazneaux’s work in Australia, and
was also the first Australian museum to hold a major exhibition
of his work in 1975. Prints for the exhibition have been mainly
drawn from the AGNSW collection with key works included from the
collections of the National Library of Australia, National Gallery
of Australia, Patrick Corrigan collection and the Cazneaux family
holdings.
The exhibition is accompanied by a major full-colour
publication with essays and focus texts by leading photographic
scholars and curators including professor of photography at the
City University of New York, Geoffrey Batchen; Gael Newton, senior
curator, photography at the National Gallery of Australia; Frances
Ebury, from the University of Melbourne; and exhibition curator
Natasha Bullock. Interspersed within these essays are texts by
other experts including Isobel Crombie, senior curator, photography,
National Gallery of Victoria; and Helen Ennis, photography historian,
curator and lecturer, Australian National University.
The title of the exhibition is drawn from the artist’s
letterhead, which is a fitting tribute to the artist's intentions,
for it was Cazneaux – passionately believing in photography
as art – who placed Australia photographically on the map
of the world.
David Edwards
