Category: Australian photography

National Gallery of Victoria website

Exhibition: ‘Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light’ at NGV International, Melbourne, Part 1

Exhibition dates: 28th November, 2025 – 3rd May, 2026

Curator: Maggie Finch, Curator of Photography at the NGV

Mina Moore (New Zealand, 1882-1957)
Nellie Stewart
c. 1913-1916
Gelatin silver photograph
18.6 x 12.7cm (image)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of the Latrobe Collection, State Library of Victoria, 1992

Sisters May and Mina Moore operated their photography studio from 1913 in the newly completed Auditorium Building at 167 Collins Street, Melbourne. This building also housed a concert hall, where recitals, operas and music performances were presented. The location was particularly advantageous for the photographers as it provided a steady stream of performers and productions in need of promotional portraits.

Wall text from the exhibition

Nellie Stewart, born Eleanor Stewart Towzey (1858-1931) was an Australian actress and singer, known as “Our Nell” and “Sweet Nell”. Born into a theatrical family, Stewart began acting as a child. As a young woman, she built a career playing in operetta and Gilbert and Sullivan operas.

It’s great to have a record of this extensive photography exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

In this first part of the exhibition, Part 1 of a huge two-part posting on Art Blart (posting proceeds as in a walk through of the exhibition), highlights for me included:

~ Two photographs by the under appreciated Bahaus artist and self taught photographer Gertrud Arndt (German, 1903-2000) whose portraits of friends, still-lifes, and performative self-portrait images are rarely seen

~ Six small, intense, jewel-like photographs by Bauhaus student Yamawaki Michiko (Japan, 1910-2000, worked in Germany 1930-1932) of “new women” and street corners in Ginza, Japan which were a revelation for their beauty, pictorial composition, tonality, spatiality and physical presence of the image

~ The groundbreaking portfolio Métal by Germaine Krull (European, 1897-1985) which was magnificently laid out so that you could “appreciate its unique design as an object” and the “vitality of the photography”, allowing the viewer to begin to understand the complex relationships between images one to another and the flow of the whole folio. A joy to behold!

More comment to follow in Part 2 of the posting.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Entrance to the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at left, Mina and May Moore’s Murial Starr (c. 1913-1916, below); at second left, May Moore’s Janina Korolewicz-Wayda (c. 1910-1920); at at third right, Mina Moore’s Nellie Stewart (c. 1913-1916, above)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Text from the National Gallery of Victoria

Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing May and Mina Moore’s Murial Starr (c. 1913-1916, below)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

May and Mina Moore (New Zealand, 1881-1931 and 1882-1957)
Murial Starr
c. 1913-1916
Gelatin silver photograph
19.6 x 12.5cm (image)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of the Latrobe Collection, State Library of Victoria, 1992

Sisters May and Mina Moore established their Wellington studio-portraiture business in around 1907. May, originally trained as a painter, learned to operate the camera while Mina, a schoolteacher, gained skills in printing. Expanding their business to Australia, May established a Sydney studio in 1911 while, two years later, Mina set up a Melbourne studio, which was later taken over by photographer Ruth Hollick. The pair became known for their studio portraits of actors, artists and musicians. Using only natural light, they created dramatic images marked by a striking chiaroscuro effect (a technique involving strong contrasts of light and shade) on the faces of their subjects.

Wall text from the exhibition

Muriel Starr (1888-1950) was a Canadian stage actress. She was particularly popular in Australia in the 1910s and 1920s. She appeared in one film, Within the Law (1916), an adaptation of her stage success. She was also known for the plays East of Suez, Birds of Paradise and Madame X.

Installation views of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing May and Mina Moore’s No title (Woman) (c. 1914)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Installation views of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing Isabel Seymour (England, 1882-1963) The Seymour Album (c. 1907-1911). Recent acquisition
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

The suffragette Isabel Seymour was employed by the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in London in 1906. Fluent in English and German, she facilitated international speaking tours for the organisation. Assembled by Seymour for the WSPU, this personal scrapbook includes photographs, postcards, advertisements and newspaper articles detailing suffragette activities. The album provides a historical snapshot of the activities and people involved in the suffragette movement, through one of its key organisations.

Vitrine text from the exhibition

Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from left to right, Woman’s Social and Political Union (distributor) Toye & Co. (manufacturer) Medal for Valour, awarded to Selina Martin, with original box (1909); Selina Martin (England, 1882-1972) No title (Photographic album containing images and handwritten text relating to Selina Martin) (c. 1910); Lizzie Casual Smith (England, 1870-1956) Miss Christabel Pankhurst (c. 1900s)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at left, Woman’s Social and Political Union (distributor) Toye & Co. (manufacturer) Medal for Valour, awarded to Selina Martin, with original box (1909) and at right, Selina Martin (England, 1882-1972) No title (Photographic album containing images and handwritten text relating to Selina Martin) (c. 1910)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

New acquisition

The suffragette Selina Martin joined the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1908. She was imprisoned on several occasions due to her activism and was awarded a Hunger Strike Medal for valour by the WSPU. This album is Martin’s personal compilation of photographs, postcards and writings, many of which relate to the suffragette cause. It includes writing from notable acquaintances such as political activist and suffragette Mary Leigh, and human rights activist and feminist Ethel Snowden.

Vitrine text from the exhibition

Selina Martin (English, 1882-1972) was a member of the suffragette movement in the early 20th century. She was arrested several times. Her Hunger Strike Medal given ‘for Valour’ by the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) was sold at auction in Nottingham in 2019.

Installation views of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at left, Gertrude Kasebier The gargoyle (c. 1900, below); at third right, Ruth Hollick No title (Young woman in hunting costume, model Lucy Crosbie Morrison) (c. 1920, below); at second right, Ruth Hollick Thought (1921, below); and at right, Madame d’Ora Untitled (1931, below)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Image-Makers: Women in Photography

By the start of the twentieth century, photography was becoming increasingly accessible to the public in many cities around the world. Previously, the medium was practised by an affluent minority of amateur artists and commercial studios. However, the production of lower-cost cameras gradually opened up photography to the broader public, particularly the expanding middle class. At the same time, women began to participate in photography as both creators and consumers. For many women, photography offered a means of income, a way to document daily life, and a powerful tool for communication and activism.

In England, suffragettes actively used photography to create and share images that were integral to their campaign for women’s right to vote. The suffragettes constructed their images in photographic studios and in the streets, merging style and fashionable dress with politics and self-assuredness. These photographs became crucial in shaping the public image of the suffrage movement.

In Australia, May and Mina Moore ran a successful photographic business. Known for their dramatically lit portraits of stage performers, they responded to the appetite for stylised portraiture as popularised by the suffragettes. At a time of shifting gender roles, May Moore also advocated publicly for women to work in photography.

Installation views of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing Gertrude Kasebier The gargoyle (c. 1900, below)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Gertrude Kasebier (American, 1852-1934) 'Gargoyle' 1901

Gertrude Kasebier (American, 1852-1934)
The gargoyle
c. 1900
Platinum photograph
20.6 x 13.5 cm (image and sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of the Herald & Weekly Times Limited, Fellow, 1979

In the early twentieth century, leading Pictorialist photographer Gertrude Käsebier played a key role in establishing photography as a form of fine art. As a member of the Photo-Secession group alongside Alfred Stieglitz, Käsebier was dedicated to Pictorialism, a style that emphasised artistic expression over documentary accuracy. This photograph, taken in Paris, highlights the painterly, emotional qualities inherent in Pictorialism. Käsebier has created an evocative image using composition and light to transform the scene. After leaving the Photo-Secession group in 1912, Käsebier became a founder and active member of the Pictorial Photographers of America.

Wall text from the exhibition

Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at left, Ruth Hollick No title (Young woman in hunting costume, model Lucy Crosbie Morrison) (c. 1920, below); at second left, Ruth Hollick Thought (1921, below); and at right, Madame d’Ora Untitled (1931, below)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Ruth Hollick (Australian, 1883-1977)
No title (Young woman in hunting costume, model Lucy Crosbie Morrison)
c. 1920
Gelatin silver photograph
20.0 x 14.6cm (image)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Presented through The Art Foundation of Victoria by Mrs Lucy Crosbie Morrison, Member, 1993
Public domain

Ruth Hollick attended the National Gallery of Victoria Art School from 1902 to 1906 and began to photograph commercially around 1908. In 1918, along with her life and professional partner, fellow photographer Dorothy Izard, she took over the studio of May and Mina Moore at 167 Collins Street, Melbourne. Eventually Hollick expanded her studio into the newly completed Chartres House building next door at 165 Collins Street. From 1920 her photographs were regularly included in magazines as well as Australian and British Pictorialist exhibitions and salons. Hollick closed her city studio in the early 1930s but continued working from her home in the Melbourne suburb of Moonee Ponds into the 1960s.

Wall text from the exhibition

Ruth Hollick (Australian, 1883-1977)
Thought
1921
Gelatin silver photograph
37.4 x 25.3cm (image)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Presented through The Art Foundation of Victoria by Mrs Lucy Crosbie Morrison, Member, 1993
Public domain

This sensitive portrait depicts the artist’s niece Lucy Crosbie Morrison. The pose of the subject, combined with the title, reveals the photographer’s careful direction and artistic ambition. The subject’s outfit, adorned with appliqué gum leaves and a gumnut belt, references native Australian plants. The work aligns with the style of Pictorialism, a popular international photographic trend at the time. Thought was recognised at the 1921 Colonial Exhibition in London, highlighting both its local significance and broader artistic appeal.

Wall text from the exhibition

Dora Kallmus (Madame d'Ora) (Austrian, 1881–1963) 'Untitled' 1931 (installation view)

Dora Kallmus (Madame d’Ora) (Austrian, 1881–1963)
Untitled (installation view)
1931
Gelatin silver photograph
22.4 x 16.4cm (image and sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2023
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Dora Kallmus, known professionally as Madame d’Ora, photographed high-profile figures associated with art, fashion and politics, including Josephine Baker and Coco Chanel. In 1907 Madame d’Ora opened her first studio in Vienna, Atelier d’Ora, one of the first photography studios in Vienna to be operated by a woman. She later moved to Paris, where her career flourished well into the 1930s – Atelier d’Ora was renowned for its glamorous, softly focused portraits – until she was forced to close her studio due to Nazi occupation.

Wall text from the exhibition

Dora Kallmus (1881-1963), better known as Madame d’Ora, was an unusual woman for her time with a spectacular career as one of the leading photographic portraitists of the early twentieth century. This exhibition, the largest museum retrospective on the Austrian photographer to date in the United States, presents the different periods of her life, from her early upbringing as the daughter of Jewish intellectuals in Vienna, to her days as a premier society photographer, through her survival during the Holocaust. Forging a path in a field that was dominated by men, d’Ora enjoyed an illustrious 50-year career, from 1907 until 1957. The show includes more than 100 examples of her work, which is distinguished for its extreme elegance, and utter depth and darkness.

Born into a privileged background and coming of age amidst the creative and intellectual atmosphere of fin-de-siècle Vienna, Kallmus was extremely well cultured. At age 23 while on a trip to the Côte d’Azur, she purchased her first camera, a Kodak box camera. She was the first woman photographer in Vienna to open her own studio and in May 1906, she was listed in the commercial register as a photographer for the first time. Self-styled simply as d’Ora, she initially took portraits of friends and members from her social circle. In the autumn of 1909, an exhibition of her work received a lively response from the press. Critics both praised the artistic style of her portraits and emphasized the prominent individuals who streamed in to view the show.

Over the course of her lifetime, d’Ora turned her lens on many artists, including Josephine Baker, Colette, Gustav Klimt, Tamara de Lempicka, and Pablo Picasso, among others. Alongside these commissions, she also photographed members of the Habsburg family and Viennese aristocracy, the Rothschild family, and other prominent cultural figures and politicians. D’Ora had close ties to avant-garde artistic circles and captured members of the Expressionist dance movement with her lens, including Anita Berber and Sebastian Droste. Fashion and glamor subjects were another important mainstay of her business. She regularly photographed Wiener Werkstätte fashion models and the designer Emilie Flöge of the Schwestern Flöge salon wearing artistic reform dresses. When d’Ora moved to Paris in 1925, she shifted her focus to fashion, covering the couture scene and leading lights of the period until 1940. She befriended key figures, such as the French milliner Madame Agnès and the Spanish designer Cristóbal Balenciaga, as well as the top fashion magazine editors of the day. She also helped create and sustain glamorous images for a variety of celebrities, including Cecil Beaton, Maurice Chevalier, and Colette.

When the Nazis seized control of Paris in 1940, she was forced to close her studio and flee. She spent the war years in a semi-underground existence living in Ardèche in the southeast of France. Her sister Anna Kallmus, along with other family and friends, died in the Chełmno concentration camp. After World War II, d’Ora returned to Paris, profoundly affected by personal losses. While she lacked an elegant studio in Paris, d’Ora’s lasting connections to wealthy clients remained and many of them returned to her. While she accepted portrait commissions, mostly for financial stability, she also pushed into new, sometimes darker directions. Around 1948, she embarked on an astonishing series of photographs in displaced persons or refugee camps, which was commissioned by the United Nations. From around 1949 to 1958, d’Ora worked on a project, which she called “my big final work.” She visited numerous slaughterhouses in Paris, and amid the pools of blood and deathly screams, she stood in an elegant suit and a hat photographing the butchered animals hundreds of times.

Anonymous. “Madame d’Ora,” on the Neue Galerie website Nd [Online] Cited 30/03/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at left, Madame D’Ora The Dolly Sisters (c. 1928, below); at second right, Trude Fleischmann The actress Sibylle Binder, Vienna (c. 1926, below); and at right, Trude Fleischmann View of Michaelerplatz, Vienna (1929, below)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Dora Kallmus (Madame d'Ora) (Austrian, 1881–1963) 'The Dolly sisters' c. 1928 (installation view)

Dora Kallmus (Madame d’Ora) (Austrian, 1881–1963)
The Dolly sisters (installation views)
c. 1928
Gelatin silver photograph
18.0 x 21.1cm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2022
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Around 1928 Madame d’Ora photographed the Dolly Sisters, who were celebrated for their glamorous performances in the 1920s. Jenny and Rosie Dolly, Hungarian-American identical twins, were vaudeville and cabaret dancers adored in Britain, the United States and across Europe for their beauty and erotically charged performances. In d’Ora’s photograph they embody the ideal of the modern woman, with bobbed hair and short skirts, dressed in glittering couture costumes and adorned with pearls.

Wall text from the exhibition

Trude Fleischmann (American born Austria, 1895-1990) 'The actress Sibylle Binder, Vienna' c. 1926 (installation view)

Trude Fleischmann (American born Austria, 1895-1990)
The actress Sibylle Binder, Vienna
c. 1926
Gelatin silver photograph
21.9 x 16.2cm (image)
22.9 x 17.1cm (sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2022
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Trude Fleischmann studied photography in Paris and, after graduating from the Viennese visual arts college die Graphische, apprenticed in the studio of photographer Madame d’Ora. In 1920 Fleischmann opened her own studio, specialising in female nudes, celebrity and socialite portraits, and glamorous photographs of actors. In 1938 she fled Austria, eventually settling in New York, where she re-established her studio and continued to focus on portraits of high-profile figures. This portrait depicts the Viennese actress Sibylle Binder, who performed throughout Germany and Austria in the 1920s. Binder is photographed in glamorous dress and with the classic short, androgynous hairstyle of the New Woman.

Wall text from the exhibition

Sybille Binder (Austrian, 1895-1962)

Sybille Binder (5 January 1895 – 30 June 1962) was an Austrian actress of Jewish descent whose career of over 40 years was based variously in her home country, Germany and Britain, where she found success in films during the 1940s.

Career

Binder began her stage career in Berlin in 1915, then in 1918 moved to Munich, where she enjoyed success in classical drama. Between 1916 and 1918 she also appeared in a handful of silent films. In 1922, she returned to Berlin and received acclaim for her performance in Frank Wedekind’s Earth Spirit. Over the next few years she performed regularly in Germany and Austria then, in the mid-1930s as war approached and conditions in Germany became difficult, she made the decision to move to England.

Between 1942 and 1950 Binder featured in 13 British films, including several of superior quality. Her first screen appearance in Britain came auspiciously in the highly acclaimed supernatural drama Thunder Rock, playing opposite dramatic heavyweights including Michael Redgrave, James Mason and Frederick Valk. Other notable films in which Binder appeared were war drama Candlelight in Algeria (1944), hugely popular period melodrama Blanche Fury, espionage thriller Against the Wind and amnesia-themed romance Portrait from Life (all 1948).

Binder returned to Germany in 1950, settling in Düsseldorf, where she successfully picked up her stage career but did not attempt to break into the German film industry. She died on 30 June 1962, aged 67.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Trude Fleischmann (American born Austria, 1895-1990) 'View of Michaelerplatz, Vienna' (Blick zum Michaelerplatz Wien) 1929 (installation view)

Trude Fleischmann (American born Austria, 1895-1990)
View of Michaelerplatz, Vienna (Blick zum Michaelerplatz Wien)
1929
Gelatin silver photograph
18.4 x 16.6cm (image)
19.0 x 17.3cm (sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2024
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing in the bottom image at third left, Kitty Hoffmann Posing dance group (Tanzgruppe Trude Goodwin) (1930, below); at third right, Lotte Jacobi Head of a dancer (1929, below); at second right, Gertrud Arndt Mask self-portrait No. 11 (1930, below); and at right, Gertrud Arndt Wera Waldek (1930, below)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

New Women, New Visions

Photography studios flourished in the early twentieth century. In Vienna, Austria, numerous prominent women photographers ran successful businesses, including Madame d’Ora and later Trude Fleischmann and Kitty Hoffmann. While Madame d’Ora’s glamorous portraits retained the soft focus characteristic of turn-of-the-century photography, the women in Fleischmann’s and Hoffmann’s images of the 1920s and 1930s matched the mood of the modern city. With their chic dress and bobbed haircuts, they represented the famed ‘New Woman’, or Neue Frau, an archetype that came to symbolise female empowerment and the shift away from traditional gender roles.

Opening in 1919 in Weimar, Germany, the Bauhaus art school experienced an influx of women students due to changes in the country’s constitution that guaranteed women the right to vote and study. Photography, while not officially taught at the Bauhaus for some years, flourished: it was seen to be an essential means of expression appropriate for the modern age. Lucia Moholy and her husband, Bauhaus professor László Moholy-Nagy, promoted the idea of ‘New Vision’ at the school. The camera was seen as the ultimate mirror of the everyday, while the camera-less images they produced allowed for great experimentation and abstraction.

Kitty Hoffmann (Austrian, 1900-1968) 'Posing dance group' (Tanzgruppe Trude Goodwin) 1930 (installation view)

Kitty Hoffmann (Austrian, 1900-1968)
Posing dance group (Tanzgruppe Trude Goodwin) (installation view)
1930
Gelatin silver photograph
15.9 x 19.8cm (image)
16.8 x 20.7cm (sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2024
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Kitty Hoffmann (Austrian, 1900-1968)
Posing dance group (Tanzgruppe Trude Goodwin)
1930
Gelatin silver photograph
15.9 x 19.8cm (image) 16.8 x 20.7cm (sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2024

Kitty Hoffmann worked and studied at Vienna’s die Graphische visual arts college from 1922 to 1924. Three years later, upon completing her studies, she opened a photographic studio in the city, specialising in fashion and society portraiture. Hoffmann’s photographs were regularly published in popular lifestyle and theatre magazines of the time, including Die Dame von Heute (The Lady of Today) and Die Bühne (The Stage). This photograph depicts dancers from the Trude Goodwin dance group. The dancers form a graphic shape that echoes the oval stage-set behind them, encapsulating the Ausdruckstanz, or ‘expressive dance’ movement, which reached peak popularity in Vienna during the 1920s.

Wall text from the exhibition

Lotte Jacobi (German-American, 1896-1990)
Head of a dancer
1929, printed c. 1970
Gelatin silver photograph
26.4 x 33.2cm (image)
27.7 x 35.3cm (sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2021
Public domain

Lotte Jacobi’s father and grandfather were also photographers, and her great-grandfather studied with Louis Daguerre, inventor of the daguerreotype. This modernist portrait features Russian dancer Niuta Norskaya. The dancer’s pale, oval-shaped face is encompassed by her wide-brimmed black hat, resulting in a striking study of modern beauty.

Wall text from the exhibition

Gertrud Arndt (German, 1903-2000) 'Mask self-portrait no. 11' (Maskenselbstbildnis Nr. 11) 1930 (installation view)

Gertrud Arndt (German, 1903-2000)
Mask self-portrait no. 11 (Maskenselbstbildnis Nr. 11) (installation views)
1930
Gelatin silver photograph
22.9 x 14.7cm (image and sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2024
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Gertrud Arndt (born Gertrud Hantschk in Upper Silicia) set out to become an architect, beginning a three-year apprenticeship in 1919 at the architecture firm of Karl Meinhardt in Erfurt, where her family lived at the time. While there, she began teaching herself photography by taking pictures of buildings in town. She also attended courses in typography, drawing, and art history at the Kunstgewerbeschule (School of design). Encouraged by Meinhardt, a friend of Walter Gropius, Arndt was awarded a scholarship to continue her studies at the Bauhaus in Weimar. Enrolled from 1923 to 1927, Arndt took the Vorkurs (foundation course) from László Moholy-Nagy, who was a chief proponent of the value of experimentation with photography. After her Vorkurs, Georg Muche, leader of the weaving workshop, persuaded her to join his course, which then became the formal focus of her studies. Upon graduation, in March 1927, she married fellow Bauhaus graduate and architect Alfred Arndt. The couple moved to Probstzella in Eastern Germany, where Arndt photographed buildings for her husband’s architecture firm.

In 1929, Hannes Meyer invited Alfred Arndt to teach at the Bauhaus, where Arndt focused her energy on photography, entering her period of greatest activity, featuring portraits of friends, still-lifes, and a series of performative self-portraits, as well as At the Masters’ Houses, which shows the influence of her studies with Moholy-Nagy as well as her keen eye for architecture. After the Bauhaus closed, in 1932, the couple left Dessau and moved back to Probstzella. Three years after the end of World War II the family moved to Darmstadt; Arndt almost completely stopped making photographs.

Mitra Abbaspour, Associate Curator, Department of Photography “Gertrud Arndt,” on the MoMA website 2014 [Online] Cited 31/03/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

Gertrud Arndt (German, 1903-2000) 'Wera Waldek' 1930, printed 1984 (installation view)

Gertrud Arndt (German, 1903-2000)
Wera Waldek
1930, printed 1984
From the Bauhaus portfolio I (1919-1933) 1984
Gelatin silver photograph
(19.0 x 22.5cm) irreg. (image)
27.0 x 35.3cm (sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Galerie Kicken Berlin in memory of Rudolf Kicken (1947-2014), 2024
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Originally wanting to study architecture, Gertrud Arndt enrolled at the Bauhaus school in 1923-1924, ultimately specialising in weaving. A self-taught photographer, she informally developed her skills while apprenticing at an architect’s office in Erfurt prior to her studies, later photographing buildings for her husband’s architecture firm. Printing this picture in its negative state, rather than turning it into a positive image, Arndt creates a striking dreamlike effect. The portrait depicts fellow Bauhaus architecture student Wera Waldek, who made designs for children’s play furniture and housing interiors. The image forms part of the Bauhaus Portfolio I 1919-1933, published by Rudolf Kicken Galerie in 1984.

Wall text from the exhibition

Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from left to right in the bottom image, Florence Henri Still life (Nature morte) (1931 printed 1975, below); Elsa Thiemann (German, 1910-1981) Design for wallpaper (1930-1931); 1930s photographs by Yamawaki Michiko (Japan, 1910-2000, worked in Germany 1930-1932) see below; and two 1920s photographs by Lucia Moholy of the Bauhaus, Dessau, see below
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Elsa Thiemann trained in painting, graphic design and photography at the Bauhaus school. While there, she responded to an advertisement from school director Hannes Meyer for wallpaper designs to be considered for the new Bauhaus collection, planned for production by the wallpaper manufacturer Gebrüder Rasch. Thiemann’s designs used photograms of flowers and hand-coloured swirling patterns, which were meticulously cut, organised and pasted into repetitious symmetrical layouts. While her designs were not manufactured, likely due to their contrast with the brighter patterns ultimately selected for production, they remain as standalone works indicative of the experimental design being practised at the Bauhaus.

New acquisition. Wall text from the exhibition

Florence Henri (European, 1893-1982)
Still life (Nature morte)
1931, printed 1975
Gelatin silver photograph
35.9 x 47.9cm (image and sheet)
ed. 6/9
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2022
© Florence Henri / Licensed by the Copyright Agency, Australia

After studying music and painting, Florence Henri was introduced to photography in 1927 while attending the Bauhaus school. There, she met László Moholy-Nagy and Lucia Moholy, whose influence (especially Moholy’s) led Henri to focus solely on photography. In 1929 she established a studio in Paris, where she became renowned for her avant-garde and experimental practice. In addition to portraits of women, her work often features still-life compositions that combine everyday objects like envelopes and sheets of paper with natural elements such as flowers and leaves. Henri also frequently used mirrors as a means of fragmenting the pictorial space.

Wall text from the exhibition. New acquisition

Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing photographs by Yamawaki Michiko, top to bottom, left to right: Ginza (Street corner) (1932, below); Ginza (Women in matching kimonos and white parasols) (1932); Ginza (Woman walking with 1930s style dress, white, with white hat) (1932, below); Ginza (Two women crossing street, one with white hat) (1932, below); Ginza (Ginza Palace) (1932, below); Ginza (Pumps and sandals walking on sidewalk) (1932). New acquisitions
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Yamawaki Michiko and her husband spent two years studying at the Bauhaus art school in Dessau, Germany from 1930, returning to Japan in 1932. Taken in the summer of 1933, Yamawaki’s Tokyo street scenes show the influence of the Bauhaus vision, while highlighting the differing roles of women at a time of great social change. We see mothers carrying children, women in kimono holding parasols, and moga (modern girls) wearing knee-length dresses and Western-inspired clothes. Yamawaki used details from twenty-one of these photographs to create her bustling modernist photomontage Melted Tokyo, published in Asahi Camera magazine in 1933.

Wall text from the exhibition

Yamawaki Michiko (Japan, 1910-2000, worked in Germany 1930-1932) 'Ginza (Street corner)' 1932 (installation view)

Yamawaki Michiko (Japan, 1910-2000, worked in Germany 1930-1932)
Ginza (Street corner) (installation view)
1932
Gelatin silver photograph
11.0 x 8.2 cm (image and sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2024
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Yamawaki Michiko (Japan, 1910-2000, worked in Germany 1930-1932) 'Ginza (Woman walking with 1930s style dress, white, with white hat)' 1932 (installation view)

Yamawaki Michiko (Japan, 1910-2000, worked in Germany 1930-1932)
Ginza (Woman walking with 1930s style dress, white, with white hat) (installation view)
1932
Gelatin silver photograph
11.2 x 8.3cm (image)
12.6 x 10.0cm (sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2024
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Yamawaki Michiko (Japan, 1910-2000, worked in Germany 1930-1932) 'Ginza (Two women crossing street, one with white hat)' 1932 (installation view)

Yamawaki Michiko (Japan, 1910-2000, worked in Germany 1930-1932)
Ginza (Two women crossing street, one with white hat) (installation view)
1932
Gelatin silver photograph
11.2 x 8.2cm (image)
12.6 x 10.0cm (sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2024
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Yamawaki Michiko (Japan, 1910-2000, worked in Germany 1930-1932)
Ginza (Ginza Palace) (installation view)
1932
Gelatin silver photograph
11.2 x 8.3cm (image)
12.5 x 10.0cm (sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2024
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at top, Lucia Moholy Bauhaus residences Dessau, kitchen – sideboard (1926, below); and at bottom, Lucia Moholy Berlin Architecture Exhibition (1928, below)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989) 'Bauhaus residences Dessau, kitchen – sideboard' (Bauhaussiedlung Dessau, küche – anrichte) 1926 (installation view)

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Bauhaus residences Dessau, kitchen – sideboard (Bauhaussiedlung Dessau, küche – anrichte)
1926
Gelatin silver photograph
11.9 x 16.8cm (image)
13.0 x 17.9cm (sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2024
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Lucia Moholy is best known for documenting the architecture, people and creative outputs of the Bauhaus school. Her work was often incorrectly attributed to famous men of the school, such as its founder, Walter Gropius, and Moholy’s then husband, László Moholy-Nagy. In this photograph, Moholy captures Gropius’s kitchen in the Masters’ House. The building and the design schools nearby, built between 1925 and 1926, are exemplars of European modern architecture and design. Sharp lines and dynamic angles emphasise the modular design, displaying the modernist principles of photography that Moholy applied to her images of architectural spaces.

Wall text from the exhibition

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Bauhaus residences Dessau, kitchen – sideboard (Bauhaussiedlung Dessau, küche – anrichte)
1926
Gelatin silver photograph
11.9 x 16.8cm (image) 13.0 x 17.9cm (sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2023
© 2023 Lucia Moholy Estate/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

“I suggest that Walter Gropius was most likely not interested in the ‘design’ of kitchens. These function rooms he would have not visited often nor did he cook. Gropius had a maid while in the Bauhaus as well as in later life. The kitchen at the Bauhaus was functional according to the times and the needs as seen by the employers of the maids who worked in them. Whereas the Frankfurt Kitchens were a result of attention to design as well as function and efficiency. …

Lucia had not enjoyed small town Dessau and intense campus life at the Bauhaus. She worked in Berlin but at in 1933 Moholy had to flee in fear of arrest for her communist association, leaving all her possessions behind including her negatives.

After time on Prague and Paris, Lucia Moholy settled In England in 1934 where she worked as a portrait photographer and teacher. …

After seeing her images as uncredited illustrations in the catalogue of a 1938 exhibition on the Bauhaus at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and many later publications, Lucia Moholy became aware that her negatives had survived. She found they had come into the possession of Walter Gropius who took them to his new teaching post America in 1937. He could easily have found Lucia post war. For years Lucia Moholy asked Gropius to give the plates back but he would not until her lawyers were able to force the return about half the original number in 1957. She complained that Gropius enjoyed the use and income from the photographs while she lived in want.”

Gael Newton AM. “Lucia Moholy: The Kitchen,” on the Photo-web website, March 2026 [Online] Cited 02/04/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

The question remains: what happened to the remaining negatives not returned by Walter Gropius to Lucia Moholy in the 1957 settlement? According to Moholy’s own card catalogue, which she used to keep track of her works, 330 negatives remained missing from her collection by the time of her death in 1989. Lost, damaged or stolen … the reputation of Gropius is forever sullied by his unseemly, grasping, patriarchal actions. MB

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989) 'Berlin Architecture Exhibition' (Exposition d'Architecture à Berlin en 1928) 1928 (installation view)

Lucia Moholy (British born Czech, 1894-1989)
Berlin Architecture Exhibition (Exposition d’Architecture à Berlin en 1928)
1928
Gelatin silver photograph
16.3 x 22.4cm (image)
16.9 x 22.9 cm (sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2024
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

In 1928 Lucia Moholy and László Moholy-Nagy left Dessau for a new life in Berlin. This image documents an innovative housing exhibition showcasing modern living. The display, designed by architect Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus school, featured new housing concepts in Zehlendorf, a Berlin neighbourhood. The graphic lettering on the building translates to ‘Live in a green environment, ideal case: Zehlendorf’. Moholy-Nagy designed the interiors, and Moholy’s images, with their signature focus on starkly contrasting vertical and horizontal lines, highlight their modernist design principles.

Wall text from the exhibition

Like many women of her time, Lucia Moholy often found herself in the shadow cast by her more conspicuous male peers – one of whom happened to be her husband, the photographer László Moholy-Nagy. After marrying in 1921, the couple moved to Weimar, Germany, so that he could begin a professorship at the Bauhaus, the influential German school of architecture, design, and applied arts. While László taught, Lucia undertook photography training, serving as an apprentice in Otto Eckner’s Bauhaus photography studio. By 1926 she had mastered a wide range of techniques, installed a darkroom in their home, and begun collaborating with her husband on experimental forms of cameraless photography.

As part of her photographic practice, Lucia began documenting the people and architectural spaces of the Bauhaus. Many of her images focus on the women who either supported or participated in the school’s activities. Edith Tschichold (1926), for instance, depicts the wife of German typographer and frequent Bauhaus collaborator Jan Tschichold. Meanwhile, Florence Henri (1927) portrays the notable Surrealist artist at the outset of her career, when she came to the Bauhaus in 1927 as a visiting photography student. Both portraits are tightly cropped around the women’s faces, revealing expressions of wistfulness or self-assurance that pull viewers into a shared emotional space.

One of Lucia’s more iconic portraits is an untitled photograph of her husband, who, sporting a machinist’s coveralls over his shirt and tie, humorously attempts to block the camera lens with his hand. The candid shot hints at the playful nature of the couple’s working relationship; once circulated, it also helped to shape László’s persona as an artist-constructor. Despite happy appearances, their relationship began to deteriorate as László declined to credit Lucia for many of their collaborations, including the celebrated 1925 book Malerei, Photografie, Film (Painting, Photography, Film).

This was not the only – or even the most significant – erasure of Lucia’s career. Forced to flee Germany in 1933 due to the rise of the Nazi Party, she made the difficult decision to leave behind her collection of 560 glass-plate negatives, which she described as “my only tangible asset.”

Following World War II, in the midst of a revival of interest in the Bauhaus, she tried desperately to locate them with no success. It wasn’t until 1954 that Walter Gropius, founder and former head of the Bauhaus, acknowledged that the negatives were in his possession, that he had been reproducing them, and that he had no intention of returning them to her. Lucia Moholy’s precise visual records of the school’s architecture – such as Bauhaus Workshop Building from Below. Oblique View (1926) – had been circulated without attribution for years in order to promote Bauhaus aesthetics. In fact, 49 of her prints appeared uncredited in the catalogue accompanying MoMA’s exhibition Bauhaus, 1919–1928, which was mounted in 1938 with Gropius’s input.

As part of her legal efforts to reclaim the negatives, Lucia wrote, “Everybody, except myself, have used, and admit to having used my photographs […] and often also without mentioning my name. Everyone – except myself – have derived advantages from using my photographs, either directly, or indirectly, in a number of ways, be it in cash or prestige, or both.”

Her claim was ultimately successful, leading to the return of 230 extant negatives in 1957. However, the acknowledgement of her influence – both as a collaborator in László Moholy-Nagy’s photographic experiments, and as an agent in the construction of Bauhaus visual identity – remains an ongoing project.

Dana Ostrander, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Photography “Lucia Moholy,” on the MoMA website 2020 [Online] Cited 31/03/2026

Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from left to right, Olive Cotton Girl with mirror (1938, below); Teacup ballet (1935 printed 1992, below); Shasta daisies (1937 printed 1992, below); at second right, Dora Maar Fashion study (c. 1936, below); and at right, Untitled (Study of Beauty (1936, below)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing from left to right, Olive Cotton’s Girl with mirror (1938, below); Teacup ballet (1935 printed 1992, below); Shasta daisies (1937 printed 1992, below)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003) 'Girl with mirror' 1938 (installation view)

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003)
Girl with mirror (installation view)
1938
Gelatin silver photograph
31.8 x 29.9cm (image)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased from Admission Funds, 1992
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Olive Cotton created this image while assisting her colleague and then partner Max Dupain on location at beaches around Sydney. According to Cotton, when Dupain was shooting fashion photographs, she had the freedom to create her own images while the model was ‘waiting her turn to be photographed by Max’. Dupain’s camera tripod cast ‘long slanting lines of shadow’ against the sand. While its creation was incidental, this photograph demonstrates Cotton’s eye for composition and her mastery of light and shade, emphasising the graphic elements of the scene.

Wall text from the exhibition

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003)
Girl with mirror
1938
Gelatin silver photograph
31.8 x 29.9cm (image)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased from Admission Funds, 1992
© The estate of Olive Cotton

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003) 'Teacup ballet' 1935, printed 1992 (installation view)

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003)
Teacup ballet (installation view)
1935, printed 1992
Gelatin silver photograph
36.0 x 29.2cm (image)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased from Admission Funds, 1992
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Upon purchasing a set of inexpensive cups and saucers to replace the mugs in photographer Max Dupain’s Sydney studio, where she was a studio assistant, Olive Cotton recognised the potential for a dynamic composition. Later describing the handles of the cups as ‘arms akimbo’, Cotton, in her efforts ‘to express a dance theme’, used a spotlight to accentuate shadows, resulting in a ‘ballet-like composition’. Through her deft use of lighting and arrangement of objects, the teacups appear transformed, as if they are ballerinas performing onstage. The image was immediately successful both in Australia and abroad, being included in the London Salon of Photography from September 1935.

Wall text from the exhibition

Olive Cotton (Australia 1911-2003) 'Teacup ballet' 1935, printed 1992

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003)
Teacup ballet
1935, printed 1992
Gelatin silver photograph
36.0 x 29.2cm (image)
ed. 21/50
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased from Admission Funds, 1992
© The estate of Olive Cotton

Olive Cotton (Australia 1911-2003) 'Shasta daisies' 1937, printed 1992 (installation view)

Olive Cotton (Australia 1911-2003)
Shasta daisies
1937, printed 1992
Gelatin silver photograph
38.2 x 28.1cm (image)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased from Admission Funds, 1992
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

‘The camera can do more than merely record an unchanging picture of a subject … The lighting, the relation of the various objects to the shape of picture and many other factors can be changed by the individual, and this is where discernment and personality come into the picture as it were.’

~ Olive Cotton

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003)
Shasta daisies
1937, printed 1992
Gelatin silver photograph
38.2 x 28.1cm (image)
ed. 8/25
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased from Admission Funds, 1992
© The estate of Olive Cotton

Dora Maar (French, 1907-1997) 'Fashion study' c. 1936 (installation view)

Dora Maar (French, 1907-1997)
Fashion study (installation view)
c. 1936
Gelatin silver photograph
Proposed acquisition

Dora Maar (French 1907-1997) 'Untitled (Study of beauty)' 1936 (installation view)

Dora Maar (French 1907-1997)
Untitled (Study of beauty) (installation view)
1936
Gelatin silver photograph
33.0 x 24.1cm
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2021

Dora Maar (French 1907-1997)
Untitled (Study of beauty)
1936
Gelatin silver photograph
33.0 x 24.1cm
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2021
© Dora Maar / Licensed by Copyright Agency, Australia

Dora Maar, a French photographer, poet and painter, established her commercial studio in Paris in 1932, quickly gaining recognition as a portrait and fashion photographer. While known as one of Pablo Picasso’s muses and the inspiration for his Weeping woman paintings, Maar was an influential artist in her own right, painting well into her eighties. As a photographer, Maar developed an elegant and experimental style, drawing on her knowledge of avant-garde photography and the ideas underpinning Surrealism. In this work, an advertising commission for the haircare brand Dolfar, Maar explores the ideal of beauty, creating an image in which the subject appears like a classical statue come to life.

Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Featuring some of the most iconic images from the twentieth century by the likes of Diane Arbus, Dora Maar, Lee Miller, Dorothea Lange, Olive Cotton and many more, Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light celebrates the images, lives and stories of more than 70 influential artists working between 1900 to 1975. Opening 28 November 2025 at NGV International, the exhibition features more than 300 rare and innovative photographs, prints, postcards, photobooks and magazines from the NGV Collection – with 170+ recently acquired and 130+ on display for the very first time.

Featuring portraiture, photojournalism, landscape photography, fashion photography, experimental avant-garde imagery and more, Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light explores the work of the artists against the backdrop of significant social, political and cultural events – from Melbourne to Tokyo, Paris to Buenos Aires. From historic images of the suffrage movement at the turn of the twentieth century, through to the women’s liberation movement and beyond, the exhibition reveals how these artists have used key photographic styles to capture, reflect and challenge the world around them. This exhibition highlights the rich networks of exchange of information, ideas and support between many of these women across the world.

The exhibition showcases the work of prominent and leading figures of photography, as well as drawing attention to lesser-known artists. Featured artists include Berenice Abbott, Lola Álvarez Bravo, Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, Imogen Cunningham, Mikki Ferrill, Sue Ford, Christine Godden, Ponch Hawkes, Annemarie Heinrich, Ruth Hollick, Florence Henri, Kati Horna, Germaine Krull, Tina Modotti, Lucia Moholy, Tokiwa Toyoko, Francesca Woodman, Yamazawa Eiko, among many others.

The exhibition reflects a recent strategic collecting focus on celebrating the contributions of women artists of the early twentieth century in the NGV Photography collection. Many of the new works on display – including by artists previously unrepresented in the NGV Collection – have been acquired with the generous support of the Bowness Family Foundation, who have been involved with the NGV for almost 25 years and who also generously contributed to the publication. There have also been significant works joining the NGV Collection with the generous support of Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family, as well as Professor Wang Gungwu, and Joy Anderson.

Highlight works include an outstanding selection of photographs by Dora Maar, including fashion photographs, social documentary images and portraiture. Dora Maar was a sophisticated artist and image-maker and deeply connected within the avant-garde community. In 1935-36, she created these studio images of Pablo Picasso, with whom she was romantically involved. In these portraits, on display in the exhibition, Maar turns the gaze of her camera onto Picasso, offering the viewer a candid insight into their private domestic lives.

A further highlight is Dorothea Lange’s instantly recognisable work, Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California, 1936, commissioned as part of a campaign by the US government Farm Security Administration to bring recognition to the impacts of the Great Depression on working class families. Lange created several photographs of the woman, Florence Owens Thompson, and her children. This image, focussed on Thompson’s seemingly anxious face, became a poignant symbol of the times.

In the 1930s German-born Ilse Bing became known as the ‘Queen of Leica’ for her use of the small, hand-held camera which allowed her the flexibility to shoot from dizzying angles, create contrasts of light, shade and shadows, and dynamic perspectives. The exhibition will feature Bing’s iconic modernist image, Self-portrait 1931, showing the artist’s reflection, of herself and her camera, accompanied by her side profile in another angled mirror demonstrating the significance of the camera in her image-making.

Inner-city Melbourne of the 1970s is brought to life in the photographs of Ponch Hawkes, offering audiences a first-hand glimpse into the changing social dynamics and sense of activism of the period. Photographs on display include her documentation of life in communal houses, of urban graffiti calling for childcare and social housing, of celebrations for Gay Pride Week, and documentation of the Women’s Theatre Group, performing outdoors beneath a Women’s Liberation banner.

Also on display is Olive Cotton’s iconic Teacup ballet, 1935, a wonderful study of light, shadows and forms. Cotton had purchased an inexpensive set of cups and saucers to replace the mugs in the Sydney studio of photographer Max Dupain, where she was studio assistant. Realising their potential for a dynamic arrangement, she photographed the teacups with elongated shadows, creating a striking composition of shadow play that Cotton described as “ballet-like”.

American artist Lee Miller moved to Paris in 1929, where she became Man Ray’s photographic student, then colleague, model and lover – all the while creating her own extraordinary photographs. On display in the exhibition is Miller’s portrait of Man Ray, taken in 1931 in Miller’s Paris apartment depicting her subject framed tightly, his gaze diverted.

Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe, better known by their adopted alliterative pseudonyms Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, were an artist duo who radically questioned the constraints of gender in their artwork and lives. The pair are represented in this exhibition with the artist’s book Aveux non Avenus, 1930. In this highly experimental book, featuring ‘essay-poems’ and collaborative photomontages, which feature self-portraits of Cahun with a shaved head and androgynous appearance and dress, Cahun and Moore raise powerful questions about identity, sexuality and self-expression.

Las Lavanderas (The Washerwomen) c. 1940, also on display, is one of several photographs created by Mexican artist Lolo Álvarez Bravo of women washing their clothes at a waterfront. The sun casts long shadows from a nearby structure, transforming the scene of everyday labour into one of dynamic angles and forms. Bravo is known for her passionate documentation of the peoples and cultures of Mexico, through such dynamic and vivid compositions.

Parliamentary Secretary for Creative Industries, Katie Hall, said: “This exhibition will celebrate the work of women photographers who documented the world around them from vastly different places and perspectives. The NGV continues to present exhibitions that show us life through different lenses and introduce us to creative trailblazers from around the world.”

Tony Ellwood AM, Director, NGV, said: “Like all collecting institutions globally, the NGV has been actively looking at historically underrepresented areas of our collection, including gender. Though this is a long and ongoing process, this exhibition offers an opportunity to celebrate and share the more than 300 works by women photographers, many of which we’ve collected since 2020. We hope this exhibition gives audiences the chance to discover the work of lesser-known photographers or deepen their appreciation of familiar ones.”

Professor Simon Tormey, Dean, Faculty of Arts and Education, Deakin, said: “This important exhibition foregrounds the often-overlooked contributions of women to the evolution of photography across the twentieth century. At Deakin, where we teach and research across Creative Arts and Photography, we are proud to support initiatives that celebrate artistic innovation and also challenge historical silences. This collaboration with the NGV exemplifies our commitment to the transformative power of the arts.”

The exhibition will be accompanied by a beautifully illustrated publication exploring the images, lives and stories of women photographers from the pivotal period of 1900-1975. The publication will feature new essays from NGV Curators and international contributors including leading American art historian, critic and curator Abigail Solomon-Godeau; Emeritus Professor at the ANU School of Art & Design Helen Ennis; World Press Photo lead curator Amanda Maddox; photographer and writer Carla Williams, and Tokyo Photographic Art Museum curator Yamada Yuri. Women Photographers 1900–1975 will be co-published with Hatje Cantz in Berlin.

This exhibition coincides with the fifty-year anniversary of the first International Women’s Year in 1975, as declared by the United Nations.

Press release from the National Gallery of Victoria

Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at left, Ilse Bing Salut de Schiaparelli (1934, below)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Ilse Bing (German, 1899-1998) Salut de Schiaparelli 1934 (installation view)

Ilse Bing (German, 1899-1998)
Salut de Schiaparelli (installation view)
1934
Gelatin silver photograph
49.5 x 39.7cm (image and sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2022
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Ilse Bing (German, 1899-1998, United States 1941-1998) 'Salut de Schiaparelli' 1934

Ilse Bing (German, 1899-1998)
Salut de Schiaparelli
1934
Gelatin silver photograph
49.5 x 39.7cm (image and sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2022

Upon moving from Frankfurt to Paris in 1930, Ilse Bing established a studio known for producing innovative portraits and fashion photography. This photograph was commissioned by fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli for a new
perfume called Salut. Bing placed a scattered bouquet of lilies in the composition to represent the perfume’s scent. The image’s dreamlike quality is enhanced by Bing’s experimental use of the solarisation technique, which reverses the tones in a photograph.

Wall text from the exhibition

At Play: The Studio, Light and Shadows

In the 1920s, amid the aftermath of the First World War, many European avant-garde artists experimented with photography to actively ‘see’ the world anew. So-called New Photography emerged during this period, with images characterised by the play of light and shadow, extreme vantage points and the use of sharp focus. These techniques aimed to disorient the viewer – familiar scenes were made to feel unfamiliar.

Artists embracing these styles predominantly worked in studios, creating experimental images that explored the principles of New Photography. Some images were made purely as artistic exercises, while others demonstrate the use of experimental techniques for commercial purposes. In the 1920s and 1930s, there was a great demand for modern photography in advertising, newspapers, catalogues and picture magazines. With the wide dissemination of these media, the influence of New Photography travelled far beyond Europe, and can be seen in works by Olive Cotton in Sydney, Lola Álvarez Bravo in Mexico City and Annemarie Heinrich in Buenos Aires.

Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at second left, Ilse Bing Salut de Schiaparelli (1934, above); at second right, Annemarie Heinrich (Argentinian born Germany, 1912-2005) Eva’s apple (La manzana de Eva) 1953; and at right, ringl+pit (German, active 1930-1933, Ellen Auerbach and Grete Stern) Komol (1931 printed 1984, below)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

ringl+pit, Berlin Grete Stern (Argentine born Germany, 1904-1999) Ellen Auerbach (American born Germany, 1906-2004) 'Komol' 1931, printed 1984 (installation view)

ringl+pit, Berlin
Grete Stern (Argentine born Germany, 1904-1999)
Ellen Auerbach (American born Germany, 1906-2004)
Komol
1931, printed 1984
Gelatin silver photograph
34.4 x 23.3cm (image)
35.2 x 24.0cm (sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2022
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Named after the childhood nicknames of Grete Stern (Ringl) and Ellen Auerbach (Pit), photography studio ringl+pit was sought after for its highly innovative and experimental work. The studio’s work broke free from feminine ideals and expectations. Komol, an unconventional advertisement for hair dye, is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the shallow nature of commercialised femininity. ringl+pit’s playful productions speak to the safety of the artists’ shared space, described by art historian Elizabeth Otto as ‘a haven of humour and honesty for the photographers in contrast to the outside world that does not understand them’.

Wall text from the exhibition

Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at left in the bottom image, Grace Lock The fly (c. 1960s); Ruth Bernhard Two Leaves (1952); and at right, Imogen Cunningham Agave design I (1920s, printed 1979)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Imogen Cunningham (American, 1883-1976)
Agave Design I
1920s, printed 1979
Gelatin silver photograph
32.6 x 25.6cm (image and sheet)
49.6 x 39.8cm (support)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1979

Image from the Art Blart archive

Following the birth of her three sons, Imogen Cunningham had to close her portrait studio in Seattle. However, she found a way to continue taking pictures at home. According to Cunningham, she would spend the afternoons while her children napped photographing her plants, ‘because I couldn’t get out anywhere, and I had a garden’. In this close-up image of an agave, Cunningham focuses on the plant’s sharp lines and the play of light. The image is recognised as one of the most iconic abstracted avant-garde images of the early twentieth century. Soon after its creation, the image was included in the 1929 contemporary exhibition Film und Foto in Stuttgart, Germany.

Wall text from the exhibition

Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing two photographs by Lola Álvarez Bravo (Mexican, 1903-1993) with at second right, Tribute to Salvador Toscano (1949 printed 1960s, below) New acquisition; and at right, The washerwomen (Las Lavanderas) (c. 1950, below) New acquisition
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at left, Lola Álvarez Bravo Tribute to Salvador Toscano (1949, printed 1960s) New acquisition; and at right, Lola Álvarez Bravo The washerwomen (Las Lavanderas) (c. 1950, below) New acquisition
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

New acquisitions

Lola Álvarez Bravo (Mexican, 1903-1993) 'The washerwomen (Las Lavanderas) c. 1950 (installation view)

Lola Álvarez Bravo (Mexican, 1903-1993)
The washerwomen (Las Lavanderas)
c. 1950
Gelatin silver photograph on cardboard
18.9 × 22.3cm (image and sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2024
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

New acquisition

Throughout her career, Lola Álvarez Bravo took several photographs of women washing their clothes at the waterfront. In this image, a large shadow from a nearby structure is cast over a group of women, children and dogs. The shadow appears to symbolise Mexico’s industrial growth and post-revolution transformation. Álvarez Bravo implemented modernist photography techniques such as high contrasts and extreme viewpoints to transform scenes of everyday labour into graphic compositions of dynamic angles and forms.

Wall text from the exhibition

Lola Álvarez Bravo (Mexican, 1903-1993)
The washerwomen (Las Lavanderas)
c. 1950
Gelatin silver photograph on cardboard
18.9 x 22.3cm (image and sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2024
© Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona Foundation

New acquisition

Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing in the bottom image at left, Barbara Morgan (United States, 1900-1992) Hearst over the people (c. 1938-1939, below) New acquisition; at second left, Barbara Morgan City shell (1938, printed 1972); at second right, Margaret Bourke-White Campbell’s Soup No. 6 (1935, below) New acquisition; and at right, Margaret Bourke-White Beach accident, Coney Island (1952, below)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Barbara Morgan (American, 1900-1992) 'Hearst over the people' c. 1938-1939 (installation view)

Barbara Morgan (American, 1900-1992)
Hearst over the people (installation view)
c. 1938-1939
Gelatin silver photograph
26.3 x 32.4cm (image)
26.8 x 33.0cm (sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2023
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

New acquisition

After moving to New York in 1930 with her photojournalist husband, Barbara Morgan turned to photography after a decade devoted to painting and printmaking. While her children were sleeping, she would experiment with avant-garde photographic techniques. In this photomontage, the artist set out to ‘visually distort the consummate distorter’: media mogul William Randolph Hearst, notorious for his sensationalist news empire. Hearst’s grinning face is stretched into a sinister omniscient octopus, its tentacles writhing into crowds of workers on the street. First published in the influential left-wing magazine New Masses, this is a compelling depiction of psychological infiltration. It also, perhaps, proposes Hearst as an effigy of authority for agitators to protest.

Wall text from the exhibition

Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at left, Berenice Abbott New York at Night (1932); at second left, Berenice Abbott Old Post Office, Broadway and Park Row, Manhattan, May 25 (1938, below); and at right, Berenice Abbott Park Avenue and Thirty-Ninth Street, Manhattan, October 8 (1936)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Cities, Industries, Technologies

The early decades of the twentieth century came to be known as the Machine Age due to rapidly increasing automation, technological change and mass production. As cities industrialised, photographers responded by capturing buildings, workers and crowds.

Germaine Krull’s photographs from the 1920s and 1930s exemplify her dynamic, modern vision. Reflecting on the inspiration she gained from photographing cranes and bridges in Europe, which eventually led to the production of her famed 1928 photobook Métal, she said: “These steel giants revealed something to me that made me love photography again. From this moment onward, I began to SEE things as the eye sees them, and it is at this moment that photography was born for me.”

Machine Age artists were also experimenting with photomontage, a method that offered radical new perspectives and challenged conventional ways of seeing. Photomontage emerged in direct response to industrial development, as cities expanded and everyday life transformed. Barbara Morgan’s images reflect on the tension between the natural and the constructed. In contrast, Varvara Stepanova and Aleksandr Rodchenko embraced the tools of mass production, combining design, image-making and progressive printing techniques to create graphic publications that promoted the Soviet Union’s industrial power to a wide audience.

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991) 'Old Post Office, Broadway and Park Row, Manhattan, May 25' 1938 (installation view)

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)
Old Post Office, Broadway and Park Row, Manhattan, May 25 (installation view0
1938
Gelatin silver photograph
23.9 x 19.3cm (image)
25.3 x 20.3cm (sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2021
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

New acquisition

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)
Old Post Office, Broadway and Park Row, Manhattan, May 25
1938
Gelatin silver photograph
23.9 x 19.3cm (image)
25.3 x 20.3cm (sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2021

New acquisition

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991) 'Park Avenue and 39th Street, New York' 1936

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)
Park Avenue and Thirty-ninth Street, Manhattan, October 8
1936
Gelatin silver photograph
19.3 x 24.3cm (image) (irreg)
20.2 x 25.2cm (sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2021

Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at left, Margaret Bourke-White Campbell’s Soup No. 6 (1935, below); Margaret Bourke-White Beach accident, Coney Island (1952, below); and at right, Berenice Abbott New York at night (1932 printed c. 1975, below)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Margaret Bourke-White (American, 1904-1971) 'Campbell's Soup #6' 1935 (installation view)

Margaret Bourke-White (American, 1904-1971)
Campbell’s Soup #6 (installation view)
1935
Gelatin silver print
17.3 × 24.1cm (image and sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2024
© Public Domain
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

New acquisition

Margaret Bourke-White (American, 1904-1971)
Campbell’s Soup #6
1935
Gelatin silver print
17.3 × 24.1cm (image and sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2024
Public Domain

New acquisition

Margaret Bourke-White became widely known for her documentation of workers and scenes of modern industry. Her photography was used on the cover of the first issue of Fortune magazine in 1930, and on the first photographically illustrated cover of Life in 1936. Bourke-White often documented aspects of the Machine Age, contrasting machines and human labourers. Taken in a factory owned by Campbell’s, a major American canned-food company established in 1869, this photograph captures part of the canning process. Bourke-White’s framing, which does not show the worker’s face, amplifies the dominance of the machine. The image first featured as a commission for a local food magazine alongside the caption ‘tangled and tricky, spaghetti defeats the mechanic’.

Wall text from the exhibition

Margaret Bourke-White (American, 1904-1971)
Beach accident, Coney Island
1952
Gelatin silver photograph
35.2 x 27.9cm (image and sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1973
Public domain

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991) 'New York at night' 1932, printed c. 1975 (installation view)

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)
New York at night
1932, printed c. 1975
Gelatin silver photograph
34.1 x 26.1cm (image and sheet)
49.8 x 40.0cm (support)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of an anonymous donor in memory of Rosa Zerfas (1896-1983), 1985
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

This photograph of the illuminated buildings of New York is the result of a fifteen-minute exposure taken from high up in the Empire State Building. The idea of documenting a changing metropolis recalls the project of pioneering French photographer Eugène Atget, who recorded Paris as it transitioned from the nineteenth into the twentieth century. Berenice Abbott had befriended Atget through fellow American émigré artist Man Ray, for whom she worked as a darkroom assistant after moving to Paris in 1921. Atget’s influence on Abbott was profound: on her return to New York in 1929 she focused on documenting the city’s civic spaces and architecture.

Wall text from the exhibition

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)
New York at Night
1932
Gelatin silver print
12 7/8 x 10 9/16″ (32.7 x 26.9cm)

Photograph from the Art Blart archive

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991) 'Changing New York' 1939 (installation view)

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)
Changing New York
1939
Artist’s book: half-tone and letterpress text, blue cloth cover, photographic dust jacket
1st edition
Purchased NGV Foundation 2022
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

New acquisition

In her funding proposal for the photobook Changing New York, Berenice Abbott described her desire to capture the ‘spirit’ of the city, driven by the realisation that ‘the tempo of the metropolis is not of eternity, or even time, but of the vanishing instant’. The images in the photobook are accompanied by texts written by Abbott’s partner, art critic Elizabeth McCausland. However, recent research has revealed that Abbott and McCausland’s original intentions for the book were significantly different to what was ultimately published, included alternate texts and a more innovative interplay between words and images.

Vitrine text from the exhibition

Margaret Bourke-White (American, 1904-1971) 'Fort Peck Dam, Montana' Front cover, 'Life' magazine, first issue, November 1936 (left); Margaret Bourke-White (American, 1904-1971) 'Fort Peck Dam, Montana' Front cover, 'Life' magazine, first issue, November 1936, 'Salesman's edition' (second left); Margaret Bourke-White (American, 1904-1971) 'Fort Peck Dam, Montana' reproduced on front cover, Life magazine, tenth anniversary issue, 25 November 1946 (right)

Margaret Bourke-White (American, 1904-1971)
Fort Peck Dam, Montana
Front cover, Life magazine, first issue, November 1936
Published by Time Inc.
Magazine: offset lithographs and printed text
Shaw research Library, Gift of Patrick Pound, 2025

Margaret Bourke-White (American, 1904-1971)
Fort Peck Dam, Montana
Front cover, Life magazine, first issue, November 1936, ‘Salesman’s edition’
Published by Time Inc.
Magazine: offset lithographs and printed text
Shaw research Library, Gift of Patrick Pound, 2025

Margaret Bourke-White (American, 1904-1971)
Fort Peck Dam, Montana
Reproduced on front cover, Life magazine, tenth anniversary issue, 25 November 1946
Published by Time Inc.
Magazine: offset lithographs and printed text
Shaw research Library, Gift of Patrick Pound, 2025
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

New acquisitions

When the American publication Life was purchased by Henry Luce in 1936, it was transformed into a photographic news magazine. Its aim was to let its readers ‘see’ the world. Photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White had preciously worked with Luce at Fortune magazine, and a year later he sent Bourke-White to the Soviet Union as the first official foreign photographer allowed to create images of Soviet industry. Later, she was the first accredited woman photographer assigned to photograph the effects of the Second World War.

In 1936 Life magazine gave Margaret Bourke-White the brief of seeking out something ‘grand’ and aspirational at the chain of dams being built at the Columbia River basin. The dams were being built to stimulate the economy as the United States grappled with the devastating effects of the Great Depression. The resulting photograph was selected for the first cover of the relaunched Life magazine. An image of modern industry, the composition emphasises the graphic forms and patterns created by the bases of the elevated spillway. The pillars seem to repeat endlessly, overshadowing two workers dwarfed by the enormous construction. Bourke-White’s image is considered an iconic representation of the Machine Age.

Vitrine text from the exhibition

New acquisitions

Margaret Bourke-White (American, 1904-1971) 'Fort Peck Dam, Montana'
Front cover, 'Life' magazine, first issue, November 1936

Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing at left, Laure Albin Guillot (French, 1879-1962) Hammer in bloom 1940s New acquisition; at second left, Germaine Krull The Eiffel Tower (c. 1928, below); at third left, Germaine Krull At the Galeries Lafayette c. 1930 New acquisition; at centre, Bea Maddock Square (1972, below); at third right, Ilse Bing Champs de Mars (1931 printed 1994, below) New acquisition; at second right, Heather George The last wall of Melbourne’s Old Eastern Markets comes down for the Southern Cross (c. 1966 printed 1978, below); and at right, Olive Cotton Radio telescope, Parkes (1964)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Germaine Krull (Dutch born Germany, 1897-1985) 'The Eiffel Tower' c. 1928 (installation view)

Germaine Krull (Dutch born Germany, 1897-1985)
The Eiffel Tower (installation view)
c. 1928
Gelatin silver photograph
17.0 x 24.3cm (image and sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2022
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

New acquisition

Germaine Krull (Dutch born Germany, 1897-1985)
The Eiffel Tower
c. 1928
Gelatin silver photograph
17.0 x 24.3cm (image and sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2022

New acquisition

Germaine Krull photographed industrial forms, political upheaval and modern life. Trained in Munich, she opened a portrait studio in 1919, relocating to Paris in 1926. Three years later, Krull’s photographs were included in the renowned 1929 exhibition Film und Foto in Stuttgart, Germany, the first international exhibition of modernist photography. During the 1920s the Eiffel Tower became a symbol of modernity for many artists, including Krull. In this image, she reimagines the visual language of the man-made structure, highlighting both
the beauty and functionality of the famous landmark. Krull led a peripatetic life across four continents, focusing on photojournalism in South-East Asia after the Second World War and later living among Tibetan monks.

Wall text from the exhibition

Bea Maddock (Australian, 1934-2016)
'Square' 1972 (installation view)

Bea Maddock (Australian, 1934-2016)
Square
1972
Photo-etching and etching
46.2 × 36.7cm (image) 49.0 × 39.4cm (plate) 76.0 × 56.8cm (sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1973
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

In the 1970s, Australian artist Bea Maddock embraced the photo-etching process, which incorporates pen and ink. She regularly used found images as the basis for these works. In Square, Maddock overlaid an image of people in a crowd, taken from ‘a book on movement of people in cities’, with a grid structure. As she said, “The actual grid comes from the windows in the National Gallery School, Victorian College of the Arts … the windows had little grills on them … and so they got drawn in because that’s how I saw the world – through those windows.”

Wall text from the exhibition

Ilse Bing (German, 1899-1998) 'Champs de Mars' 1931, printed 1994 (installation view)

Ilse Bing (German, 1899-1998)
Champs de Mars (installation view)
1931, printed 1994
Gelatin silver photograph
21.9 x 33.1cm (image) 27.6 x 35.3cm (sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2022
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Ilse Bing (German, 1899-1998)
Champs de Mars
1931, printed 1994
Gelatin silver photograph
21.9 x 33.1cm (image) 27.6 x 35.3cm (sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2022

Taken atop the Eiffel Tower, this image sees Ilse Bing turn her lightweight 35 mm Leica camera downwards, photographing the people and bustling city below. The distance created by this dizzying viewpoint reduces the scene to a pattern of shapes and forms. Images such as these were characteristic of a ‘new way of seeing’ that was adopted by avant-garde photographers during the interwar period.

Wall text from the exhibition

Heather George (Australian, 1907-1983)
The last wall of Melbourne’s Old Eastern Markets comes down for the Southern Cross
c. 1966, printed 1978
From the Melbourne, old buildings and new projects series (c. 1966)
Gelatin silver photograph
24.0 × 29.1cm (image)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1980
Public domain

Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing in the bottom image at left, Germaine Krull At the Galeries Lafayette c. 1930 New acquisition; at second left, Bea Maddock Square (1972, above); at third left, Ilse Bing Champs de Mars (1931 printed 1994, above) New acquisition; at second right, Heather George The last wall of Melbourne’s Old Eastern Markets comes down for the Southern Cross (c. 1966 printed 1978, above); and at right, Olive Cotton Radio telescope, Parkes (1964)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Aleksandr Rodchenko (Russian, 1891-1956) and Varvara Stepanova (Russian, 1894-1958) 'USSR in construction, no.12 (Parachute issue)' 1935 (installation view)

Aleksandr Rodchenko (Russian, 1891-1956) and Varvara Stepanova (Russian, 1894-1958)
USSR in construction, no.12 (Parachute issue) (installation views)
1935
Illustrated journal: colour rotogravure, 22 pages with fold-out inserts, lithographic cover
42.3 x 60.3 x 1.2cm (open)
42.3 x 30.3 x 0.4cm (closed)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, NGV Supporters of Prints and Drawings, 2019
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Varvara Stepanova and her husband, fellow artist and designer Aleksandr Rodchenko, were founder-members of the First Working Group of Constructivists. This is a French-language edition of USSR in Construction, a journal that aimed to reflect, through photography, the modernisation of the Soviet Union and to promote its industrial power. The journal employed cutting-edge artistic and printing developments, and this issue was designed by Stepanova and Rodchenko using original ideas around photomontage and page design. Dedicated to the ‘brave Soviet paratroopers’, the so-called ‘Parachute’ issue draws upon the circular form of the opened parachute.

Wall text from the exhibition

Installation view of the exhibition Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light at NGV International, Melbourne, November 2025 – May 2026 showing collotypes from Germaine Krull’s portfolio Métal 1928
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

One of the most significant modernist photobooks of the 1920s, Germaine Krull’s Métal portfolio comprises sixty-four images printed on individual sheets, a title page and a three-page preface by the French writer and journalist Florent Fels. Krull photographed iron structures such as cranes and transport bridges in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Marseille and Saint-Malo, as well as the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Krull showcases the beauty and innovation of the structures, conveying the sense of awe that accompanied the rapid industrialisation of the time. The presentation of the photographs – loose, to be arranged however the viewer chooses – is also radical, allowing for endless interpretations.

Wall text from the exhibition

Germaine Krull (European, 1897-1985) 'Métal' 1928

Germaine Krull (photographer) Cover design by M. Tchimoukow. 'MÉTAL' cover 1928

Germaine Krull (1897-1985) Image from the portfolio 'MÉTAL' 1928

Germaine Krull (European, 1897-1985)
Métal
1928
64 black and white collotype plates, letterpress on paper, black cloth-backed paper-covered board portfolio with ribbons
30.5 x 23.5 x 2.5cm (overall)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Bowness Family Fund for Photography, 2023

Photographs from the Art Blart posting Germaine Krull Métal 1928, December 2018. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

Germaine Krull’s 1928 publication Métal is often described as one of the most significant photobooks of the twentieth century. Interestingly, Métal is not a book in a conventional sense, of sequential pages bound together with a narrative to guide the structure. Rather, when looking through this new acquisition to the NGV Collection you can immediately appreciate its unique design as an object. This dynamic format which, along with the vitality of the photography, has continued to inspire graphic designers, book publishers and artists since its publication almost a century ago.

Métal consists of a folded board cover, with ribbons attached, that acts as a folder for the pages within. The cover, designed by artist Lou Tchimoukow, reproduces one of Krull’s photographs of a detail of machinery on Paris’s Eiffel Tower. This image is overlaid with bold, vertically arranged letters spelling out ‘KRULL’ in a staggered pattern that mimics the lines of the structure beneath. Within the folder are sixty-four unbound plates. Each plate reproduces a photograph by Germaine Krull of industrial forms (and on one occasion, two images to a page) printed as collotypes, as well as the words ‘Krull, Métal’ at the top left, the plate number at the top right, and the publisher’s information ‘A. Calavas, Paris’ at the base. There is also an insert of eight pages (two sheets folded) that includes texts by journalist Florent Fels, and words from Krull herself. …

For Métal, Krull brought together a selection of recent photographs which, as she wrote in the introductory text, were from sites that included the Eiffel Tower, as well as the cranes and transport bridges of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Marseille and Saint-Malo. Apart from the Eiffel Tower, they are emblematic of new industries and engineering emerging in these European cities in the decade after the end of the First World War and could, at first glance, be read as a tribute to modernity as seen through this rapid industrial development.

The presentation of the photographs, however, disrupts the opportunity for any clear narrative, or interpretation. While they are numbered, Krull’s images are printed without any captions (a radical technique in a photobook for the period). The audience is encouraged to actively engage: they are able to construct their own sequences and visual associations. And the composition of the images is highly varied – some close up and cropped, showing the cogs, bolts and mechanics; some reveal dizzying angles and perspectives; some show clear lines, some are abstracted; the majority are taken outside, some are within a factory; some are printed on the vertical, some on the horizontal; some are the result of multiple exposures, as if to emphasise a sense of movement or energy.

Art historian Professor Kim Sichel writes that Krull constructs an ‘activist narrative’ in Métal: ‘Through narrative techniques that are part taxonomy, part lyrical poem, part vertiginous montage, part Industrial-Age adulation, and by making the whole volume uncomfortable and strange to read, she brings her machine parts to life as they oscillate uneasily throughout the album’.2

The photographs in Métal can be linked to contemporary art movements circulating within Europe, such as the visual language of the ‘New Vision’ styles of photography emerging out of the Bauhaus in Germany, or the clean lines of the ‘New Objectivity’ as demonstrated by photographers, such as Albert Renger-Patzsch. Krull’s photographic vision, however, remains dynamic and unique – it does not follow one clear aesthetic or technical path. Métal is an innovative publication: it is open-ended and allows for endless interpretations.

2/ Kim Sichel, “Montage: Germaine Krull’s Métal,” in Sichel, Kim, Making Strange: The Modernist Photobook in France, Yale University Press, Connecticut, 2020, pp. 33–4.

Maggie Finch. “Germaine Krull Métal portfolio 1928,” on the NGV website 22 Oct 25 [Online] Cited 24/12/2025. This article first appeared in the January–February 2024 edition of NGV Magazine. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

NGV International
180 St Kilda Rd, Melbourne

Opening hours:
Open daily, 10am – 5pm

Photographic series: Marcus Bunyan. ‘Metropolis’ 2025-2026

February 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
No. 1 Brewery B
2026
from the series Metropolis

This is a selection of images from the new series. Please see the whole series on my website.

The base images for this series of work come from a book on the history of St. James’s Gate Brewery in Dublin published in 1931. These images have then been reflected, distorted, overlapped and filters have been used to produce the desired feeling. Each image has a different number of variations depending on this feeling. The 75 images in the series are sequenced as in the book.

The influences on the work were the architecture in Fritz Lang’s 1937 film Metropolis; the surrealist photography of Dora Maar notably her image Le Simulateur (The Pretender) 1936; the modernist photographs of factory machines by artists such as Jakob Tuggener and Albert Renger-Patzsch; and the prisons of Piranesi’s etchings published in Carceri d’invenzione, often translated as Imaginary Prisons, c. 1745 to 1750.

Please click on the photographs to see a larger version of the image.
Please view the work on a large computer screen if possible.
Please see the whole series on my website.
Many thankx to Elizabeth Gertsakis for her invaluable help.

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
No. 2 Brewery
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Boiler House B
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Old Engine A
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Electric Power Station A'
2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Electric Power Station A-B
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Compressor Machines A' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Compressor Machines A-B
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Refrigerating Plant A
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Robert St. Malt Store – Exterior A' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Robert St. Malt Store – Exterior B' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Robert St. Malt Store – Exterior A-B
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Robert St. Malt Store – Interior A' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Robert St. Malt Store – Interior A-B
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Loading Malt Wagons B' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Loading Malt Wagons D' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Loading Malt Wagons B, D
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Cooke's Lane Malt House A' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Cooke's Lane Malt House C' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Cooke’s Lane Malt House A-C
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Barley in Process of Being Malted
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Malt Train Outside No. 2 Brewery B
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Hops in Store A' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Hops in Store C' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Hops in Store A-C
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Loading Hop Wagons A'
2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Loading Hop Wagons B' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Loading Hop Wagons A-B
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Regulating Mash Temperatures B
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Copper Stage A' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Copper Stage B' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Copper Stage A-C
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
“Striking Off” a Copper
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
A Corner of No. 11 Vat House A
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Vat House – Another View B' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Vat House – Another View C' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Vat House – Another View A-C
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Cask Making Shop – Blazing A' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Cask Making Shop – Blazing B' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Cask Making Shop – Blazing A-C
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Cask Magazine A'
2026 from the series 'Metropolis'

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Cask Magazine A-C
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Cooperage Yard – Another View B' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Cooperage Yard – Another View F' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Cooperage Yard A-B
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Cask Cleansing Shed A'
2026 from the series 'Metropolis'

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Cask Cleansing Shed A-D
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Racking Room, Showing Casks being Filled
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Loading Railway Wagons
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Low Platform Vehicle B'
2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Low Platform Vehicle A-B
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Some of the Delivery Fleet About to Start
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
'Loading Wharf on River Liffey C' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) 'Loading Wharf on River Liffey D' 2026

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Loading Wharf on River Liffey C-D
2026
from the series Metropolis

Marcus Bunyan website

The best of Art Blart in 2025

December 2025

Around the world, 2025 hasn’t been a great year for photography exhibitions. As a friend of mine said on Facebook it has been a dreary year and I would tend to agree with him.

Curatorially, everything was pretty cut and dried, relying on the usual one artist show or group exhibition on a theme with nobody prepared to take a risk on anything creative, inventive even.

I found little to inspire me in terms of idiosyncratic but illuminating pairings of photographers or unusual insights into the conditions and conceptualisation of photographic production and presentation – other than a few of the exhibitions noted below: costume, gesture and expression – yes! the development of colour photography pre the ubiquitous American artists – yes! and the life in self-portraits of a photobooth operator in Melbourne, part magician, part artist – YES!

Out of the 60 postings on Art Blart in 2025 I’ve picked what I think are the 11 best exhibitions, plus a couple of honourable mentions.

I hope you enjoy the selection and a Happy New Year to you all!

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Marcus Bunyan. “Past present,” on the exhibition Still Performing: Costume, Gesture, and Expression in 19th Century European Photography at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, August 2024 – January 2025

Victor Plumier (Belgian, 1820-1878)
Lady in Costume
About 1850
Daguerreotype, half plate
5 1/2 × 4 1/2 inches
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation

“The emotions and the sentiments, the gestures and the expressions.
The actor and the stage, the photographer and the sitter.
The staged photograph and the tableaux vivant.
The Self and the Other.” ~ MB

2/ A Long Arc: Photography and the American South since 1845 at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, October 2024 – January 2025

Andrew Joseph Russell (American, 1829-1902)
Slave Pen, Alexandria, Virginia
1863
Albumen silver print
High Museum of Art
Purchased with funds Lucinda Weill Bunnen Fund and the Donald and Marilyn Keogh Family

“Photographs are containers of, fragments of, memories of, histories of, events – remembrances of events – brought from past into present, informing the future, showing only snippets of the stories of both past and present lives. Parallel to the usual thought that photographs are about death, they are also memory containers for (still) living people.” ~ MB

3/ Marcus Bunyan. “Out in the midday sun,” on the exhibition Martin Parr. Early Works at Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (FFF), September 2024 – February 2025

Martin Parr (British, 1952-2025)
Mayor of Todmorden’s inaugural banquet, Todmorden, West Yorkshire, England, 1977
1977
Gelatin silver print
© Martin Parr | Magnum Photos

“I am always fascinated with the early work of an artist. In essence, the photographs tell you what are the primary concerns for the artist and these themes usually remain with them for the rest of their career. These early black and white photographs provide a window into that ongoing investigation, that golden path. They are more subtle in their modulation of British life than in the later colour work – it’s as though the artist had to change gears with the use of colour developing a more ironic way of seeing British life through a different spatial relationship to his subjects – but in these photographs there is still that deprecating humour that is often missing in the work of his contemporaries…” ~ MB

4/ Saul Leiter – An Unfinished World at Foam, Amsterdam, January – April, 2025

Saul Leiter (American, 1923-2013)
Pull
c. 1960
Chromogenic print
© Saul Leiter Foundation

“There are the things that are out in the open, and there are the things that are hidden, and life has more to do, the real world has more to do with what is hidden.” ~ Saul Leiter

5/ True Colors: Color in Photography from 1849 to 1955 at Albertina Modern, Vienna, January – April, 2025

Léon Vidal (French, 1833-1906)
Oriental Onyx Sardonyx Cup (16th century)
1876
Photomechanical proof (photochromy using the Léon Vidal process) mounted on cardboard
H. 20.8 ; L. 26.2 cm.
Don Fondation Kodak-Pathé, 1983

“What a wonderful exhibition. It’s so exciting to see the history and development of colour photography pre the ubiquitous, American artists William Eggleston and Stephen Shore, much as I like both artists.” ~ MB

6/ The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne, March – May 2025

Julie Millowick (Australian, b. 1948)
Mother and child from 46 Blanche Street, St Kilda
1977
Gelatin silver print
15.9 x 23.7cm
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated by Julie Millowick 2024

“Prahran College itself played a critical role in the legitimisation of photography as an art form within Australia. It spearheaded the integration of art photography into tertiary education curricula, fostering an environment where young artists … could experiment formally and conceptually.”

James McArdle. “Epoch,” on the On This Date in Photography website, 25th April, 2025 [Online] Cited 28/04/2025

7/ Peter Mitchell: Nothing Lasts Forever at The Photographers’ Gallery, London, March – June 2025

Peter Mitchell (British, b. 1943)
Opticians, London, 1975
1975
C-print
© Peter Mitchell

“The wit, the humour (pigeons sitting outside the racing pigeon shop), the stiff upper lip, the carry on regardless, the working class pantomime of life and death – the public commission flats where people formed caring communities that were destroyed through redevelopment – the integrity of an existence that has largely come and gone pictured with warmth and empathy.” ~ MB

8/ Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June – August 2025

Installation view of the exhibition Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June – August, 2025
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

“Through the strip self-portraits Adler took while servicing and then testing the photobooths that he operated in Melbourne, Australia we become immersed in an archive of his world, the exhibition becoming a joyous ode to a man who devoted his life to photography (not in the traditional sense): in turns humorous and historical, a travelogue, his travelogue, through time and space.’ ~ MB

9/ Street Photography. Lee Friedlander, Joseph Rodríguez, Garry Winogrand at Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany, May – October 2025

Joseph Rodriguez (American, b. 1952) '220 West Houston Street, NY' 1984

Joseph Rodríguez (American, b. 1952)
220 West Houston Street, New York
1984
Gelatin silver paper, print after 1988
25.3 x 37.2cm
© Joseph Rodríguez, Courtesy Galerie Bene Taschen
Repro: Historisches Archiv mit Rheinischem Bildarchiv

“Rodríguez’s moody, high contrast photographs of humanity and street scenes pictured from behind the wheel of his taxi in New York proffer an intuitive, empathetic and subjective view of the city and its people at a time of great economic and social upheaval…

Uncertain times, uncertain angles and perspectives, uncertain light give rise to a powerful body of work made certain by the talent of an impressive photographer. Glorious work.” ~ MB

10/ Marcus Bunyan. “Myths of the American West,” on the exhibition Richard Avedon ‘In the American West’ 1979-1984 at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris, April – October 2025

Richard Avedon (American, 1923-2004)
Sandra Bennett, twelve year old, Rocky Ford, Colorado, August 23, 1980
1980
Gelatin silver print
© The Richard Avedon Foundation

“Avedon, while undercutting the myth of the American West through his storytelling, doesn’t seek to document, exploit or misrepresent his subjects, but to subjectively present them as on a theatrical set devoid of scenery – where their very appearance becomes scene / seen. As he himself said, “My concern is… the human predicament; only what I consider the human predicament may simply be my own.”” ~ MB

11/ Bernd & Hilla Becher – History of a Method at Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne, September 2025 – February 2026

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015)
Wassertürme, USA (Water towers, USA)
1974-1983
Gelatin silver prints
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, vertreten durch Max Becher
Courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – Bernd und Hilla Becher Archiv, Köln, 2025

“The Bechers’ typologies and grids, their topographic state, their same same photographs and perspectives of industrial sculptures and landscapes are anything but objective. Their pictorial grammar, underlaid by a conceptual approach to subject matter, continuously reflected in the systematics of capture and display (the juxtaposition of works together), is constantly undermined by the ghost in the machine – those viral codes of mutation and difference which cannot be controlled.” ~ MB

Honourable mentions

Typologien: Photography in 20th-century Germany at Fondazione Prada, Milan, April – July, 2025

Heinrich Riebesehl (German, 1938-2010)
Menschen Im Fahrstuhl, 20.11.1969 [People in the Elevator, 20.11.1969]
1969
Gelatin silver print, printed 2007
Kicken Berlin
© Heinrich Riebesehl, by SIAE 2025

Objective / subjective
Pattern / randomness
Isolation / extinction
Morphology / mutation
Specific / anonymous
Repetition / difference
Same / other
Structure / creativity
Orientation / disorientation
Universal / individual
Reality / imagination
Documentation / disruption
Omnipresent / unique
Exact / imprecise
Composed / emotional
Staged / snapshot
Concept / feeling
Formal / intuitive
Ritual / subversion
Collaboration / resistance

Et cetera, et cetera…

Inherent in one is the other.

Every photo within a Becher grid contains its own difference. ~ MB

Carrie Mae Weems: The Heart of the Matter at Gallerie d’Italia, Turin, April – September, 2025

Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Welcome Home
1978-1984
From the series Family Pictures and Stories 1978-1984
© Carrie Mae Weems and reproduced courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, and Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin

“Weems blends the poetic and conceptual in photographs and bodies of work which investigate history, identity, racism, executive and patriarchal power from the perspectives of female / Black American.

What a fabulous artist, a guide into circumstances seldom seen, now revealed.” ~ MB

Exhibition: ‘Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits’ at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 5th June – 16th August, 2025

Curators: Catlin Langford with Christopher Sutherland and Jessie Norman (Metro Auto Photo)

Installation view of the exhibition Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June – August, 2025
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Dream Maker

This is one of the most joyous photography exhibitions that I have seen in a very long time.

The exhibition “introduces us to Alan Adler (2932-2024), who while little known, was the oldest and longest serving photobooth technician in the world… For over 50 years, Adler maintained a fleet of photobooths across Melbourne / Narrm, most notably the site at Flinders Street Station.”

Through the strip self-portraits Adler took while servicing and then testing the photobooths that he operated in Melbourne, Australia we become immersed in an archive of his world, the exhibition becoming a joyous ode to a man who devoted his life to photography (not in the traditional sense): in turns humorous and historical, a travelogue, his travelogue, through time and space.

We see Adler growing older and ageing; we see historic events such as the COVID pandemic with him wearing a mask; we see him travelling the world to picture other photobooths in situ; we see him goofing and performing for the camera; and we see the people he met along the way. I particularly like the photograph of Adler having his photo taken on the “Photo Ride: Take “5” with Chuckie” where he imitates the smile of his fellow traveller (see below)

The exhibition is also historical – there is a short section on the history of the photobooth – contemporary – there are contemporary works by Australian artists who use the photobooth as the basis for their art – and lost and found – where “lost” photobooth strips that Adler diligently collected in the hope of one day reuniting them with their owner are displayed.

There is an absolutely wonderful video by Christopher Sutherland titled Alan (extract below) which gives you good insight into the man. He seems part magician, keeping those old photobooths going, and part artist – Adler’s workshop reminding me so much of the basement of the American artist Joseph Cornell (1903-1972, see photo below) where he used to keep all the treasures he scavenged from around New York that he used to make his magical boxes. Adler’s photobooths were his magical boxes kept going by his bits and pieces, booths of happiness and memories, tales of a life in portraits.

In this exhibition the spirit of this man shines through in gloriously irreverent black and white and colour self-portraits, and fun, adventurous photographs from overseas. One of the best pure photography exhibitions I have seen this year.

What a life, well honoured.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. All installation photographs © Marcus Bunyan

Entrance

Wall text from the exhibition 'Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits' at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June - August, 2025

Installation view of the exhibition Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June – August, 2025
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Gallery 1

Christopher Sutherland (Australian)
Alan (extract)
2025-ongoing
Digital film

This is part of an ongoing film project by Christopher Sutherland on Alan Adler, which began in 2018 when they first met.

Cornell’s basement studio, 3708 Utopia Parkway, Flushing, New York, 1964
Collection Duff Murphy and Janice Miyahira
© Terry Schutté

Installation views of the exhibition Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June – August, 2025
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Gallery 2

Wall text from of the exhibition 'Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits' at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June - August, 2025

Installation views of the exhibition Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June – August, 2025
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits introduces us to Alan Adler (1932-2024), who while little known, was the oldest and longest serving photobooth technician in the world.

For over 50 years, Adler maintained a fleet of photobooths across Melbourne / Narrm, most notably the site at Flinders Street Station. As part of his weekly service, he would take a strip of test shots, now forming an extraordinary visual archive of over a thousand self-portraits.

Adler’s story shows a fascinating dedication to repetitious image making and is supported by the artworks of Melbourne creatives who have passionately used his photobooths.

Marking 100 years of the photobooth, Auto-Photo is one of many worldwide events that celebrate the centenary and reflect on the significance of this analogue machine.

Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits features Adler’s extensive archive, alongside additional exhibits and works of art from the collections of Katherine Griffiths, Mark Holsworth, Kyle Archie Knight, Ruth O’Leary, Nicky Makin, Jesse Marlow, Brian Meacham, Metro Auto Photo, Patrick Pound and Joshua Smith.

Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits is a Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP) exhibition, presented in partnership with RMIT Culture.

Text from the RMIT Gallery website

Gallery 3

A Selected Visual History (in vitrine)

Photobooth portraits with the same background (c. 1930-1950) (in vitrine)

Julie Mac Photobooth Portraits 1970s (in vitrine)

Vitrine text from the exhibition 'Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits' at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June - August, 2025

Installation view of Julie Mac's 'Photobooth Portraits' 1970s from the exhibition 'Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits' at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June - August, 2025

Mark S. Holsworthy Photo Booth – readymade in 3 minutes 1984-continuing (in vitrine)

Installation view of Mark S. Holsworth's 'Photo Booth - readymade in 3 minutes' (1984 - continuing) from the exhibition 'Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits' at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June - August, 2025

Installation views of the exhibition Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June – August, 2025
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Gallery 4

Joshua Smith Flinders Street Photobooth 2019

Installation view of Joshua Smith's 'Flinder Street Photobooth' (2019) from the exhibition 'Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits' at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June - August, 2025

Installation views of the exhibition Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June – August, 2025
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

RMIT Gallery
344 Swanston St,
Melbourne VIC 3000

Opening hours:
11am – 5pm Tuesday to Friday
12pm – 4pm Saturday
Closed on public and University holidays

RMIT Gallery website

Photograph: Marcus Bunyan. ‘Corfe Castle and graveyard, Dorset’ 1994

August 2025

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Corfe Castle and graveyard, Dorset
1994
Gelatin silver print

Apologies

There will be no posting on Art Blart this week as I continue to recover from hip replacement surgery last weekend.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Photographs: Anonymous 1960s medium format Kodak Ektachrome slides of Australia

July 2025

Unknown photographer (Australian)
The Nobbies, Phillip Island, Victoria, Australia
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Further Australian photographs from scans of 73 medium format Kodak Ektakchrome slides found in a country town in Victoria, Australia taken in Australia, Mexico, United States of America and Canada in the mid-1960s. I believe that the photographer was an Australian who was on holiday in Mexico, United States of America and Canada.

In nearly 40 years of being a photographer I have never seen colour medium format slides from the 1960s. There was no colour fading to the slides. The person who took the photographs was shooting medium format colour in the 1960s so they would have been a photographic aficionado. Just by holding the slides up to the light I could see the photographs were compositionally very interesting. Whoever the photographer was they had a great eye!

There are some beautiful photographs of the Australian landscape here. And the Australian “light” and colour are so different from the rest of the photographs (see part 1 of the posting).

I have also included an example of how incredibly dirty these slides were, see Untitled (Australian landscape) (detail uncleaned and cleaned) 1960s (below), and note how much work and many hours were required to bring these images back into a state of grace … and preservation.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

All photographs © Marcus Bunyan. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. See Part 1 of the posting.

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Australian landscape)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

The fault at left appears in several other slides in these Ektachromes and must have been in the camera as it’s not in the slide itself…

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Australian landscape)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

There is a Mini panel van on the causeway!

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Australian landscape)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

The same landscape as the two photographs below

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Australian landscape)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Unknown photographer (Australian) 'Untitled (Australian landscape)' 1960s (detail uncleaned and cleaned)

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Australian landscape) (detail uncleaned and cleaned)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Man holding his movie camera, Australia)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Australian built Ford XR Falcon station wagon

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Unknown woman
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

I don’t know where this is but it feels Australian to me, especially the fashion…

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Australian landscape, possibly South Point, Wilson’s Prom, Victoria)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Australian coastal she oak and tea tree.

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Australian landscape)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Wonderful photograph of the Australian landscape…

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Australian landscape)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992)
Silos through windscreen
1935
Gelatin silver print

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Australian landscape)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

The second photograph taken through the windscreen of a car

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Australian landscape)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

I’m not sure what they are doing or where this is (possibly Australia) but I like the photo!

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

A geologist hammer in his hand?

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Visitors must not leave pathway)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Exhibition: ‘Australian Tonalism: A selection from the John and Peter Perry Collection’ at the Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 7th May – 27th July, 2025

Curators: John and Peter Perry

Edgar Finlay (Australian, 1893-1974) 'Untitled Streetscape' 1919 from the exhibition 'Australian Tonalism: A selection from the John and Peter Perry Collection' at the Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, Melbourne, May - July, 2025

Edgar Finlay (Australian, 1893-1974)
Untitled Streetscape
1919
Oil on board
32.2 x 27.2cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

This is a near perfect exhibition of Australian Tonalist paintings from the John and Peter Perry Collection at the Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, Melbourne.

From the beautiful colour of the gallery walls which compliments the art work to the subtle grouping of the paintings to the individual nuances in style of each artist’s work … this is a stunning exhibition which envelops the viewer in the paintings sublime, minimalist intimacies.

From portrait to landscape, from cityscape to still life, I was enraptured by the presence of each painting. Blow Monet or Cezanne, here is Australian colour, context, identity, place, perspective at its suffused finest!

I have always adored the work of Clarice Beckett (Australian, 1887-1935) ever since I saw her paintings at Lauraine Diggins Fine Art way back in 2015, and normally she would be the start of the show … but not here. Here she is surrounded by visions / visionaries of equal stature, led by the redoubtable painter and teacher Max Meldrum (Australian, 1875-1955).

The wall of five of his paintings of trees (see installation photo below) including The Glade, Eltham (c. 1920, below), The Pool (1923, below), The Bottom of the Hill (Eltham Reserve) (1925, below) is one of the most rigorous conceptual investigations into that subject I have seen in Australian painting, yet at the same time I was emotionally moved by their subtle nuances of form, tone and inhabitation. It was as though the artist had internalised the transcendence of his subject.

Believe me when I say that I inhaled the canvases in this exhibition, I breathed their suffused glow.

It was a real privilege to see the exhibition and to be able to construct this post. There are not many reproductions of Australian Tonalist paintings online by many of these artists so here is a record their achievement, and that of John and Peter Perry for having the foresight and perspicacity to collect them.

Enveloped in a pall of opaque density I see clearly.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. All installation photographs © Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition Australian Tonalism: A selection from the John and Peter Perry Collection at the Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, Melbourne, May – July, 2025 showing at left, George Coates’ portrait of Max Meldrum, c. 1895 (below); at centre, Edgar Finlay’s Untitled Streetscape 1919 (above); and at right, three paintings by Clarice Beckett (below)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Australian Tonalism

Australian Tonalism is characterised by a particular “misty” or atmospheric quality created by the Meldrum painting method of building “tone on tone”. Tonalism developed from Meldrum’s “Scientific theory of Impressions”; claiming that social decadence had given artists an exaggerated interest in colour and, to their detriment, were paying less attention to tone and proportion. Art, he said, should be a pure science based on optical analysis; its sole purpose being to place on the canvas the first ordered tonal impressions that the eye received. All adornments and narrative and literary references should be rejected.

Tonalism opposed Post-Impressionism and Modernism, and is now regarded as a precursor to Minimalism and Conceptualism. The whole movement had been under fierce controversy and they were without doubt the most unpopular group of artists, in the eyes of most other artists, in the history of Australian art. Influential Melbourne artist and teacher George Bell described Australian Tonalism as a “cult which muffles everything in a pall of opaque density”.

Text from the Wikipedia website

George Coates (Australian, 1869-1930)
Max Meldrum
c. 1895
Oil on canvas
49.7 x 39.5cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Clarice Beckett (Australian, 1887-1935)
The Solitary Bathing Box
c. 1933
Oil on beaver board
22.7 x 30cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Clarice Beckett (Australian, 1887-1935)
Street Scene (Collins Street)
c. 1931
Oil on canvas board
17.6 x 24cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Clarice Beckett (Australian, 1887-1935)
(Beaumaris Coast)
c. 1927
Oil on academy board
17.7 x 23.5cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

'Australian Tonalism' wall text The John and Peter Perry Collection

Wall text from the exhibition Australian Tonalism: A selection from the John and Peter Perry Collection at the Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, Melbourne, May – July, 2025
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Carl Hampel (Australian, 1891-1940) 'At Eltham' 1920 from the exhibition 'Australian Tonalism: A selection from the John and Peter Perry Collection' at the Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, Melbourne, May - July, 2025

Carl Hampel (Australian, 1891-1940)
At Eltham
1920
Oil on prepared board
30.5 x 23cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Carl Hampel (Australian, 1891-1940) 'Coming Light' c. 1924 and 'Evening' 1920

Carl Hampel (Australian, 1891-1940)
Coming Light
c. 1924
Evening
1920
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

A E Newbury (Australian, 1891-1941) 'White Gum and Pines' 1919; 'Morning Light' 1919; and 'The Old Garden' 1919

A E Newbury (Australian, 1891-1941)
White Gum and Pines
1919
Morning Light
1919
The Old Garden
1919
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

A E Newbury (Australian, 1891-1941)
The Old Garden
1919
Oil on prepared board
30.5 x 23cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

William Frater (Scottish, 1890-1974)
Untitled Landscape
c. 1920
Oil on canvas
30 x 41.5cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

William Frater (Scottish, 1890-1974)
Olympus
c. 1928
Oil on canvas on board
32 x 46cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

William Frater (Scottish, 1890-1974)
Tree forms on the Yarra
c. 1926
Oil on canvas on board
30.5 x 39cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

William Frater (Scottish, 1890-1974)
The River (Homage to Cezanne)
1930
Oil on board
43 x 54.5cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation views of the exhibition Australian Tonalism: A selection from the John and Peter Perry Collection at the Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, Melbourne, May – July, 2025
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Discover the artistic legacy of Max Meldrum (1875-1955) in this exhibition showcasing the lifelong dedication of John and Peter Perry to collecting works by this pioneering Australian artist and his influential school. Meldrum, a key figure in 20th-century Australian art, revolutionised the painting scene between the two World Wars, creating a distinctive style that has left a lasting imprint on the nation’s artistic landscape.

The exhibition features a selection of works from a collection of over 320 pieces, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, and etchings. Highlights include landscapes from both France and Australia, still lifes, portraits and animal studies – all embodying the unique approach of Meldrum and his followers. The ‘Meldrumites’ – a talented group of artists such as A M E Bale, Clarice Beckett, Colin Colahan and Polly Hurry – were deeply influenced by Meldrum’s teachings, and their works are also prominently featured. Many of these artists either lived or worked in the area now known as the City of Boroondara.

Also on display are fascinating studio artifacts, including plaster casts, palettes and photographs, offering a deeper insight into the artists’ creative processes. The exhibition will be accompanied by a limited-edition publication, providing further context and reflection on this significant collection.

Featuring: A M E Bale, Clarice Beckett, Colin Colahan, Archie and Amalie Colquhoun, Polly Hurry, John Farmer, Alma Figuerola, Justus Jorgensen, William Frater, Carl Hampel, Percy Leason, Max Meldrum, Jim Minogue, A E Newbury, Arnold Shore and others.

Text from the Boroondara Arts website

Installation view of the exhibition Australian Tonalism: A selection from the John and Peter Perry Collection at the Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, Melbourne, May – July, 2025
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

A D Colquhoun (Australian, 1894-1983)
Self Portrait
c. 1922
Oil on oak panel
21 x 15.8cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

L August Cornehls (Australian, 1887-1962)
Self Portrait
c. 1924
Oil on canvas on cardboard
26.7 x 22cm (oval)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Alma Figuerola (Australian, 1902-1970)
Self Portrait
c. 1926
Oil on cardboard
19.5 x 15cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

John Farmer (Australian, 1897-1989)
Self portrait
c. 1926
Oil on canvas
20.5 x 15.3cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Australian Tonalism wall text Meldrum’s Painting Theory
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Max Meldrum (Scottish, 1875-1955) 'Brume' (Mist) c. 1907 and 'Study, Le Clocher' c. 1908

Max Meldrum (Scottish, 1875-1955)
Brume (Mist)
c. 1907
Study, Le Clocher
c. 1908
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Max Meldrum (Scottish, 1875-1955)
Lever de Soleil (Sunrise)
1910
Oil on canvas
35 x 26.8cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Max Meldrum (Scottish, 1875-1955)
Chene et Peupliers (Oak Tree and Poplars)
c. 1907
Oil on canvas
33.5 x 32cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Max Meldrum (Scottish, 1875-1955) 'Esquisse' (Sketch) c. 1904 and 'Haystacks, Brittany' c. 1908

Max Meldrum (Scottish, 1875-1955)
Esquisse (Sketch)
c. 1904
Haystacks, Brittany
c. 1908
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Australian Tonalism wall text Meldrum in France
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Max Meldrum (Scottish, 1875-1955)
Pont de Grenelle, Paris
1929
Oil on canvas sketching panel
33.3 x 40.5cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Max Meldrum (Scottish, 1875-1955)
The Glade, Eltham
c. 1920
Oil on canvas on board
44 x 42cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Max Meldrum (Scottish, 1875-1955)
The Pool
1923
Oil on canvas on board
34 x 37.5cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Max Meldrum (Scottish, 1875-1955)
The Bottom of the Hill (Eltham Reserve)
1925
Oil on canvas on board
32.5 x 42cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992)
Photograph of Max Meldrum
1937
Gelatin silver photograph
47.5 x 33.7cm (image)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation views of the exhibition ‘Australian Tonalism: A selection from the John and Peter Perry Collection’ at the Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, Melbourne, May – July, 2025 showing the work of Colin Colahan
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Colin Colahan (Australian, 1897-1987)
Bridge Road, Evening
c. 1929
Oil on linen on board
33 x 40.8cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Colin Colahan (Australian, 1897-1987)
Untitled (Streetscape)
1919
Oil on cardboard
32.2 x 23cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Colin Colahan (Australian, 1897-1987)
Kings Road, Chelsea
1940
Oil on board
46 x 38cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Colin Colahan (Australian, 1897-1987)
The Green Fence
1930
Oil on canvas on board
45.3 x 38cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Colin Colahan (Australian, 1897-1987)
Swanston Street, Melbourne
c. 1930
Oil on canvas on board
45 x 37.7cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Colin Colahan (Australian, 1897-1987) 'Swanston Street, Melbourne' c. 1930 (detail)

Colin Colahan (Australian, 1897-1987)
Swanston Street, Melbourne (detail)
c. 1930
Oil on canvas on board
45 x 37.7cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Tone, Proportion and Colour: A Brief Overview of the Exhibition

John R. Perry, March 2025

In 1974 Peter and I purchased a small sketch of a Brittany sunset by Max Meldrum. We have continued collecting works by Meldrum and painters associated with him for over forty-five years. Our aim has been to develop a representative, well composed collection of quality work by Australian Tonalists. The emphasis has been on Meldrum’s earlier works and those of his early associates. His work was at its most sensitive and his influence greatest in this period.

We have in this exhibition some of Meldrum’s rare early French landscapes including several by his brother-in-law Charles Nitsch. There are also works which I believe to be the first truly modern Australian paintings, produced at Eltham in 1917. Meldrum developed a simplified approach to his art and two works, The Three Trees (1917) and Cloudy Summer Afternoon, Eltham (1917) illustrate this progress. They give a true sense of space and atmosphere, all the more striking when seen with what a direct and simple means these effects are obtained. These compact and luminous studies show us the first evidence of the painter putting his perceptual theory into practice.

William Frater and Arnold Shore were major figures in the development of the modern movement in Melbourne and are included in this exhibition to illustrate the influence Meldrum had on these two under-appreciated painters…

The works of Clarice Beckett and Polly Hurry are generally one of soft-focus, for these lovers of mist and crepuscular fogs pay homage to the painters Eugene Carriere and James McNeill Whistler. The works of John Farmer, A E Newbury and to some degree Richard McCann, evolved into their respective personal styles which owe more to Camille Corot than to Meldrum. Their landscapes of subtle delicacy and feathery texture elicit many comparisons with the work of the great French Barbizon School painters…

Having both decided early on our collecting paths, that conventional collecting was not for us, we decided to be more objective, learning to appreciated and admire the work of the Australian Tonalists. As our collection grew, we were willing to leave the beat track, avoiding art dealers, art writers and critics, committing ourself to dealing directly with those painters associated with the Tonalist movement.

Like John Constable, Meldrum believed that, “… in such an age as this, painting should be understood, not looked on with blind wonder, nor considered only as a poetic aspiration, but as a pursuit legitimate, scientific and mechanical.”2

John Constable, quoted in The Letters of John Constable, ed. by R.B. Beckett (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1955), p. 530.

Alice Marian Ellen Bale (Australian, 1875-1955)
Self portrait
1925
Oil on canvas
75 x 62.5cm
Town hall Gallery Collection
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Australian Tonalism Alice Bale self portrait wall text
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

A M E Bale (Australian, 1876-1955)
Interior (83 Walpole Street, Kew)
c. 1928
Oil on board
31 x 23.5cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

A M E Bale (Australian, 1876-1955)
Pompon Dahlias
c. 1936
Oil on canvas
56 x 46cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

A M E Bale (Australian, 1876-1955)
In Castlemaine Gardens (The Wall of Poplars)
1922
Oil on canvas
28.5 x 23cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Richard McCann (Australian, 1889-1970) 'The Cottage' 1919; 'Eltham' c. 1920; 'Heyington from Hawthorn' 1927; and 'Pont Neuf & Henri IV, Paris' 1924

Richard McCann (Australian, 1889-1970)
The Cottage
1919
Eltham
c. 1920
Heyington from Hawthorn
1927
Pont Neuf & Henri IV, Paris
1924
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Richard McCann (Australian, 1889-1970)
Eltham
c. 1920
Oil on academy board
24.5 x 39.5cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Richard McCann (Australian, 1889-1970)
Heyington from Hawthorn
1927
Oil on cedar panel
24 x 35cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Richard McCann (Australian, 1889-1970)
The Cottage
1919
Oil on academy board
24 x 30.5cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Justus Jorgensen (Australian, 1893-1975)
On the way to Toulon, Cassis
1927
Oil on canvas on flyboard
32.5 x 40.5cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Justus Jorgensen (Australian, 1893-1975)
Cassis
1927
Oil on canvas on board
40.5 x 33cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

John Rowell (Australian, 1894-1973) 'The Roadway' c. 1920 and William Rowell (Australian, 1898-1946) 'The Barn' 1926

John Rowell (Australian, 1894-1973)
The Roadway
c. 1920
Oil on canvas on flyboard
21.7 x 21.5cm

William Rowell (Australian, 1898-1946)
The Barn
1926
Oil on academy board
28.5 x 30.5cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Charles Nitsch (French, 1882-1972)
Picherit’s Farm, Pace, Brittany
c. 1910
Oil on cotton on board
32.5 x 40cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Australian Tonalism wall text Charles Nitsch
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

A D Colquhoun (Australian, 1894-1983) 'The Avenue de l'Observatoire' 1925 and 'The Fountain in the Luxembourg Gardens' c. 1925

A D Colquhoun (Australian, 1894-1983)
The Avenue de l’Observatoire
1925
The Fountain in the Luxembourg Gardens
c. 1925
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

A D Colquhoun (Australian, 1894-1983)
The Avenue de l’Observatoire
1925
Oil on wood panel
16 x 21.6cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

A D Colquhoun (Australian, 1894-1983)
The Fountain in the Luxembourg Gardens
c. 1925
Oil on board
15.8 x 21.5cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

John Farmer (Australian, 1897-1989) 'Misty Morning, London' 1934 (detail)

John Farmer (Australian, 1897-1989)
Misty Morning, London (detail)
1934
Oil on canvas on board
19 x 24cm
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Town Hall Gallery
360 Burwood Road Hawthorn VIC 3122
Phone: (03) 9278 4770

Opening hours:
Mon to Fri, 9am – 5pm
Saturday, 12pm – 4pm

Boroondara Arts website

Moira Joseph alumni profile on the Prahran Legacy website

Exhibition: ‘The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981)’ at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne

“This is a magnificent exhibition which showcases the work of students and teachers at Prahran College between 1958-1981.” Dr Marcus Bunyan

Exhibition dates: 1st March – 25th May, 2025

Curators: Angela Connor, MAPh Senior Curator, and Stella Loftus-Hills, MAPh Curator

Exhibiting artists: Colin Abbott, Robert Ashton, Con Aslanis, Polly Borland, Peter Bowes, John Brash, Peter Burgess, Nanette Carter, John Cato, Andrew Chapman, Lyn Cheong, Jon Conte, Kim Corbel, Paul Cox, Mimmo Cozzolino, Christina de Water, Duncan Frost, Rob Gale, Sandra Graham, Bill Henson, Julie Higginbotham, Graham Howe, Carol Jerrems, Moira Joseph, Peter Kelly, Christopher Köller, Johann Krix, Paul Lambeth, Derrick Lee, Peter Leiss, Carolyn Lewens, Steven Lojewski, Ian Macrae, James McArdle, Jim McFarlane, Rod McNicol, Julie Millowick, Peter Milne, Jacqueline Mitelman, Richard Muggleton, Martin Munz, Nicholas Nedelkopoulos, Greg Neville, Glen O’Malley, Viki Petherbridge, Ross Powell, Philip Quirk, Leonie Reisberg, Susan Russell, Stella Sallman, Athol Shmith, Geoff Strong, Ian Tippett, George Volakos, Stephen Wickham, Andrew Wittner, Ken Wright, Lynette Zeeng

Andrew Chapman (Australian, b. 1954) 'Lest we forget' 1980 from the exhibition 'The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981)' at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne, March - May 2025

Andrew Chapman (Australian, b. 1954)
Lest we forget
1980
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated 2024

Nurture

A world of creativity and transformation

This is a magnificent exhibition at the Museum of Australian Photography which showcases the work of students and teachers at Prahran College between 1958-1981.

People more eminent than myself have commented on the exhibition.

Gael Newton AM – formerly curator of photography at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and the Senior Curator of Australian and International Photography at the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) in Canberra – “highlights the diverse and passionate nature of the Prahran College community, where an unstructured curriculum and open debates encouraged multiple approaches – from documentary and still life to collage and staged tableau – while the influence of European cinematic sensibilities and the local film and music scenes added depth to the artistic expression.”1

Daniel Palmer – Professor in the School of Art at RMIT University, his research and professional practice focuses on contemporary art and cultural theory, with a particular emphasis on photography and digital media – commenting on the era “frames the 1970s as a transformative era for Australian society and photography, characterised by social activism.”1

Helen Ennis – formerly Curator of Photography at the National Gallery of Australia and outstanding writer on Australian photography and photographers – emphasises “productive intergenerational exchanges between students and their older educators Prahran represented a space of creative possibility and hope” while acknowledging Prahran’s limitations including gender imbalance, “noting examination records from 1974 showing only five of twenty students were female, with the first woman (Julie Millowick) not appointed to teach until 1983.”1

“Ennis’s address brings to light from The Basement a critical reassessment of how we understand and present 1970s Australian photography. She advocated for approaches that preserve the complexity, contradictions, and energy of this formative period rather than imposing retrospective order that might simplify or misrepresent it. Her reflections bridge historical understanding with contemporary curatorial practice, suggesting ways to engage more authentically with photography’s rich past.”2

Bill Henson AO – former student and internationally acclaimed photographer – acknowledges that “that political movements such as feminism were present among Prahran’s students in the 1970s – “there were the feminists; there were little groups doing their social diligence” – he noted that these stances did not overshadow the college’s overarching emphasis on beauty and creative exploration. “There wasn’t this righteousness, this indignation, this kind of territorial thing about issues,” he said. In contrast there was an openness and enthusiasm that defined Prahran during his time there – a place where beauty and creativity were paramount.”3

On reflection

What struck me most about this exhibition was the creative strength of the STUDENT work … and that is something nobody mentions. This was student work.

These were artists finding their personal voice, exploring the world, being creative, learning how to envision the world in their photographs – through social documentary or conceptual, experimental photographs that challenged how Australian viewed itself. As Assoc. Professor James McArdle, a former student and one of the many driving forces behind this exhibition, insightfully observes:

“Prahran, at this time, was a nexus for the ‘New Photography’ movement in Australia, bringing to our country international developments from the 1960s, the candid, loosely structured photographic language that contrasted sharply with the rigid narratives of photojournalism and the increasingly commercial aesthetics of colour photography.

Prahran College itself played a critical role in the legitimisation of photography as an art form within Australia. It spearheaded the integration of art photography into tertiary education curricula, fostering an environment where young artists … could experiment formally and conceptually.”4

Indeed, Melbourne in the late 1960s and early 1970s could be seen as the nurturing centre of photography in Australia.

As my friend Ian Lobb said to me before he died, “In 1970 where did you go to see a fine art photograph on exhibition in a non-institutional gallery in Melbourne? The only place was the doorway to the John Cato / Athol Shmith / Peter Barr studio in Collins Street. You would never know which of the three photographers would have a print placed in that doorway.”5

But then things changed.

Variously, Melbourne had Jenny Boddington appointed curator of photography in 1972 at the National Gallery of Victoria, becoming the first such curator in Australia and perhaps only the third in the world.

Melbourne also had three commercial art photography galleries that supported local and international exhibitions, exposing major international photographers to local artists. These included Brummels Gallery of Photography reopened in the early 1970s by that wonderful photographer Rennie Ellis and deputy director Robert Ashton (Prahran), the first privately run art gallery in the country to be devoted specifically to photography; The Photographers’ Gallery and Workshop founded in 1973 by Paul Cox (Prahran), Ingeborg Tyssen, John F. Williams and Rod McNicol (Prahran), taken over by Ian Lobb in 1974 and joined by co-director Bill Heimerman in 1976 showcasing mostly American and some European original fine prints from major artists which were influential on Australian audiences and practitioners; and Church Street Photographic Centre opened by Joyce Evans OAM in 1976, the third commercial photographic gallery in 1970s Melbourne which exhibited international 19th and 20th Century photography

Prahran College was closely followed by Phillip Institute of Technology (PIT) which was a tertiary college in Bundoora which had an art photography course run by Ian Lobb and Les Walkling, from 6 January 1982 to 30 June 1992 at which time the school integrated as part of RMIT University. I attended PIT in 1991 and then RMIT University where I completed by doctorate, after having undertaken two years at Brighton Technical College completing two years on the basics of photography, a grounding for many budding photographers in those years under the direction of Peter Barker.

I remember at RMIT fine art photography course we would have reviews of student work every 4 weeks, where over 2 days students put up new work and we all sat together with the lecturers and discussed the ideas contained in the work. The atmosphere was electric, the disparate work, the in-depth conversations, the passion. Look at Greg Neville’s photograph Tutorial: lecturers and students [back row L–R Derrick Lee, Bryan Gracey, Athol Shmith, Paul Cox, Elizabeth Tainsh] (c. 1971, below) and you can feel a similar energy…

So Melbourne has been particularly blessed – I dislike that word but there is no other that really conveys what I mean – by this confluence of events, people and places that supported the rigorous investigation of photography and life that Prahran College was a part of. At Prahran there was optimism, social conscience, and an engagement with the street and with life, there was “creative rebellion and intellectual engagement”. I asked James McArdle at an artist’s talk about this: how exciting this would have been, the bouncing of ideas one off another, the sense of community and camaraderie, and yes they were all there … encouraging an “atmosphere” of creativity which has produced a generation of outstanding photographers who will leave a lasting legacy in the history of Australian photography.

As an artist who arrived as a “second generation” photographer after Prahran College I have a great affection for the people and the work produced in the exhibition.

I knew John Cato and his delightful wife Dawn Cato well and went down to their house for afternoon tea to discuss photography and life; together with Bill Heimerman I co-curated his retrospective at The Photographers’ Galley and Workshop in 2002, the text ‘and his forms were without number’ used in the book accompanying the exhibition John Cato Retrospective at the Ballarat International Foto Biennale in 2013 where Paul Cox and I made opening speeches. Both were good friends.

Joyce Evans was my substitute mother in Australia. What a wonderful, bohemian, creative, intelligent woman she was. I wrote “Nothing emerges from nothing,” foreword to her book We Had Such High Hopes: Student Activism and the Peace Movement 1949-1952, A Photographic Memoir by Joyce Evans 2019 published before she died, a book that instils the social conscience ethos emerging in postwar Australia which leads into the work of the Prahran College photographers. I still her miss greatly.

As I do both Ian Lobb and Bill Heimerman (pictured below in Peter Leiss’ Untitled [Bill Heimerman (right) and Ian Lobb (left) at the rear of The Photographers’ Gallery] c. 1975-1980), both good friends. Ian Lobb was my first photography lecturer at PIT and became my mentor and friend for over 30 years; Bill gave me three solo exhibitions at The Photographer’s Gallery and Workshop in my early days as an artist, and much excellent advice, for which I am forever grateful.

James McArdle and Gael Newton remain valued friends, both amazing fonts of knowledge in all aspects of photography and photographic research.

In conclusion, congratulations to all who have been involved in bringing this exhibition to fruition: artists, writers and curators. It is a magnificent achievement and a testament to the creativity and passion of the times, both theatre and document reflecting an era that sadly can no longer be repeated.

Prahran College photographers followed their heart and their eye, they possessed a curiosity which “evokes the care one takes for what exists or could exist; an acute sense of the real which, however, never becomes fixed; a readiness to find our surroundings strange and singular; a certain restlessness in ridding ourselves of our familiarities and looking at things otherwise; a passion for seizing what is happening now and what is passing away; a lack of respect for traditional hierarchies of the important and the essential.”6

However long I live, it has always been a privilege to be part of this community, to be part of the Melbourne photographic community.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ James McArdle. “Launched!,” on the On This Date in Photography website, 6th April 2025 [Online] Cited 06/04/2025

2/ Helen Ennis quoted in James McArdle. “Unfixing,” on the On This Date in Photography website, 29th March 2025 [Online] Cited 06/04/2025

3/ Bill Henson opening speech summarised in James McArdle. “Opening!” on the On This Date in Photography website, 1st March, 2025 [Online] Cited 18/04/2025

4/ James McArdle. “Epoch,” on the On This Date in Photography website, 25th April, 2025 [Online] Cited 28/04/2025

5/ “Steve Lojewski [in the year ahead of me at PCAE] and I job shared at Shmith / Cato / Barr. A fantastic opportunity to work mainly in the darkroom, occasionally assisting in the studio and as they gained confidence in me sent out on [mickey mouse] jobs when they were double booked. A HUGE break and when Peter Barr bought out John and Athol and established Peter Barr & Associates he invited me to freelance out of his new studio. That offer would not have happened without the prior experience of the darkroom & studio work. My first job on the Monday morning of my 2 week trial for Athol, John and Peter was 250 prints [on fibre paper] of Malcom Fraser by 11.00 am [ie the wet deadline was 11.00. Dry and out the door was, from memory, 12.noon].”

Julie Millowick in conversation with Marcus Bunyan via Facebook, 20th May 2025

6/ Michel Foucault, “The Masked Philosopher” in Politics, philosophy, culture: interviews and other writings, 1977-1984. London: Routledge, 1988, p. 328

Apologies if a couple of the photographs are slightly out of focus, these were digital RAW files shot on a Sony rx100 handheld at 1000ASA with low depth of field.

For more information please see The Prahran Photography website which upholds the legacy of Prahran College 1970s photography through posts on profiles of the alumni and lecturers (an ongoing project).

“Curiosity is a vice that has been stigmatized in turn by Christianity, by philosophy and even by a certain conception of science. Curiosity, futility. I like the word however. To me it suggests something all together different: it evokes concern; it evokes the care one takes for what exists or could exist; an acute sense of the real which, however, never becomes fixed; a readiness to find our surroundings strange and singular; a certain restlessness in ridding ourselves of our familiarities and looking at things otherwise; a passion for seizing what is happening now and what is passing away; a lack of respect for traditional hierarchies of the important and the essential.”

Michel Foucault, “The Masked Philosopher” in Politics, philosophy, culture: interviews and other writings, 1977-1984. London: Routledge, 1988, p. 328

Gallery One (clockwise)

Installation view of the exhibition 'The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981)' at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne

Wall text from the exhibition 'The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981)' at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne, March - May, 2025

Installation views of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

In May 1968 the newly formed photography department of Prahran Technical School (known as Prahran College of Advanced Education (PCAE) from 1973) moved into the basement of a freshly completed art and design building on the corner of High Street and Thomas Street in Melbourne’s inner southeastern suburb of Prahran. Here, for the first time in Australia, photography was taught as an artform.

Featuring the work of approximately 60 artists, The basement brings to light rare vintage prints from the 1960s through to the early 1980s, key archival ephemera and folio work – from students and teachers of the College’s Diploma of Art & Design (Photography). It was a period where new discussions developed quickly around the possibilities of what photography could be. These students and teachers were part of a progressive, edgy wave of image-makers excited about the medium’s potential.

Under the vanguard of influential photographers such as John Cato, Paul Cox and Athol Shmith, the school became a breeding ground for some of this country’s most important art photographers: Carol Jerrems, Bill Henson, Nanette Carter, Rod McNicol, Polly Borland, Peter Milne, Robert Ashton, Philip Quirk, Peter Leiss, Jacqueline Mitelman, Mimmo Cozzolino, Graham Howe and Julie Millowick, among many others.

The exhibition’s accompanying publication elucidates the experience from several perspectives. As we hear from the curators, students, colleagues and academics, it’s clear that this course, in this time, was of great consequence to our photographic ecosystem and its development.

Curated by Angela Connor, MAPh Senior Curator, and Stella Loftus-Hills, MAPh Curator, The basement gathers works from close to 60 artists, traversing over 13 years of image-making and adjacent subcultures in music, protest, fashion and art criticism. This landmark exhibition will deliver new research into the canon of Australia’s cultural history through its assembled works and attendant publication.

Text from the Museum of Australian Photography website

Installation view of the reverse of the opening wall of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Moira Joseph (Australian, b. 1955)
'Jack with a cigarette sitting in the church garden, St Kilda' 1974 (installation view) from the exhibition 'The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981)' at the Museum of Australian Photography, March - May, 2025

Moira Joseph (Australian, b. 1955)
Jack with a cigarette sitting in the church garden, St Kilda (installation view)
1974
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection
Acquired 2024
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Moira Joseph (Australian, b. 1955)
'Herald boys, Fitzroy Street, St Kilda' 1975 (installation view)

Moira Joseph (Australian, b. 1955)
Herald boys, Fitzroy Street, St Kilda (installation view)
1975
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection
Acquired 2024
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Moira Joseph is a Melbourne-based professional photographer, filmmaker and teacher. She studied photography at Prahran College from 1974 to 1977. Joseph created the works on display here while she was a student. Armed with her Mamiya 220 medium-format camera, Joesph often walked between the College and her home in St Kilda, affectionately documenting the characters she regularly encountered. Jack with a cigarette sitting in the church garden, St Kilda (1974), for example, shows an elderly gentleman from a nearby men’s refuge sitting alone in Acland Street’s church square. Children regularly feature in Joseph’s student work, and she spent time photographing at luna park, as well as Prahran Primary School.

Wall text from the exhibition

Moira Joseph (Australian, b. 1955)
'Three Herald boys, Acland Street, St Kilda' 1975 (installation view)

Moira Joseph (Australian, b. 1955)
Three Herald boys, Acland Street, St Kilda (installation view)
1975
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection
Acquired 2024
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the first gallery of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing Julie Millowick ‘s photographs from clockwise: ANZAC woman alone, draped in leopard skin coat, 1975; Carlisle Street shopping, 1975; Luna Park, St Kilda, 1975; Mother and child from 46 Blanche Street, St Kilda, 1977 from the series Portraits of women
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Julie Millowick studied photography at Prahran College from 1974 to 1976 and gained early experience working in the darkroom of Athol Shmith, John Cato and Peter Bart. She is widely known for her work as a commercial photographer and photojournalist as well as her personal documentary projects.

1975 was Millowick’s second year at Prahran College, and also International Women’s Year, as designated by the United Nations. With the spotlight set firmly on women’s rights, Millowick made an extensive series of photographs entitled Portraits of women, which she continued in subsequent years. This human-centred series with feminist undertones, sympathetically captured women in a variety of locations and depicted moments of motherhood, friendship, loneliness, old-age and youth.

Wall text from the exhibition

Read my review “Down with Earth,” on the exhibition Julie Millowick: Surrounding at the Castlemaine Art Museum, June 2024

Julie Millowick Alumni profile on the Prahran Legacy website

Julie Millowick (Australian, b. 1948)
'Mother and child from 46 Blanche Street, St Kilda' 1977 from the exhibition 'The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981)' at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne, March - May 2025

Wall text from the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the first gallery of the exhibition 'The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981)' at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne

Installation views of the first gallery of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the first gallery of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing at left, George Volakos’ photograph Vietnam moratorium 1 1970; at top centre, Graham Howe’s photograph Protester, moratorium to end the war in Vietnam 1970 followed by two photographs Moratorium to end the war in Vietnam 1970 (below)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

As a student at Prahran College in the early 1970s, Graham Howe embraced photography’s ability to document social change. For Howe, photography was the perfect medium for observing the world around him and expressing a point of view. This is evident in his images of a Vietnam War moratorium in Melbourne in September 1970. Immersed in a sea of people, placards and peace signs, Howe made a series of tightly framed and often close-up views of the protesters, showing the event from his perspective as an impassioned participant rather than an objective observer. Other Prahran College students, such as Johann Kris and George Volvos, also took photographs at these demonstrations, documenting the intensity of the activist movement

Wall text from the exhibition

Graham Howe alumni profile on the Prahran Legacy website

Graham Howe (Australian, b. 1950)
'Moratorium to end the war in Vietnam' 1970, printed 2024 (installation view)

Graham Howe (Australian, b. 1950)
Moratorium to end the war in Vietnam (installation view)
1970, printed 2024
Pigment inkjet print
Collection of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Graham Howe (Australian, b. 1950)
'Moratorium to end the war in Vietnam' 1970, printed 2024 (installation view) from the exhibition 'The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981)' at the Museum of Australian Photography, March - May, 2025

Graham Howe (Australian, b. 1950)
Moratorium to end the war in Vietnam (installation view)
1970, printed 2024
Pigment inkjet print
Collection of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the first gallery of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing from left clockwise, Ken Wright’s Rally for Gough 1975; Andrew Chapman’s Street protest, November 11th 1975; Richard Muggleton’s Untitled (F19 protest) c. 1977; and Andrew Chapman’s Lest we forget 1980
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Ken Wright (Australian / New Zealand, 1948-1998)
'Rally for Gough' 1975 (installation view)

Ken Wright (Australian/New Zealand, 1948-1998)
Rally for Gough (installation view)
1975
Gelatin silver print
Private collection
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Andrew Chapman (Australian, b. 1954) 'Lest we forget' 1980 (installation view)

Andrew Chapman (Australian, b. 1954)
Lest we forget (installation view)
1980
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated 2024
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Andrew Chapman studied photography at Prahran College from 1974 to 1976 and then again in 1980. His Street protest, November 11th (1975) documents a politically motivated rally. It was taken on the corner of Albert Street and moray Street in South Melbourne. Chapman was in his second year at Prahran College and had been listening to parliament on the radio in the office of the then photography technician Murray White. When the news broke of the Whitlam Government’s dismissal, Chapman was quick to join the rallies that broke out in the streets. Later, in 1980, the streets were still politically charged when Chapman returned to Prahran to complete his course. His image, Lest we forget (1980) was made in City Square on Swanston Street at an anti-Fraser demonstration in the lead-up to the 1980 federal election. Described by Julie Millowick as the student who never stopped photographing, even during class, Chapman always has his Leica camera ready. Throughout his career Chapman has photographed much of Australia’s social and political landscape, working both personally and for clients, including as a photojournalist for major Australian newspapers and magazines.

Wall text from the exhibition

Andrew Chapman alumni profile on the Prahran Legacy website

Wall text from the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the first gallery of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing from top left clockwise photographs by Julie Higginbotham: Greville Street Market, 1975; Catching butterflies, Prahran Park, 1974; and Greville Street, 1976
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Julie Higginbotham practiced a style of unobtrusive street photography in the mid-1970s, making candid expressive images such as ‘Catching butterflies, Prahran Park’ (1974), which records a moment of human interaction with a keen eye for composition and synchronicity. Higginbotham recalls being offered a bohemian, European-inspired style of education at Prahran College while she was there from 1971 to 1974, particularly by Cox whose emphasis on freedom of expression and personal choice resonated. Through her street photography, Higginbotham was interested in recording the cultural changes that were taking place in Melbourne at the time. Living above a shop in the heart of Greville Street in 1975, she was part of a lively hippie community in Prahran. While living conditions were squalid, the cheap rents attracted artists, musicians and alternative thinkers to the area. Greville Street at this time was one of Melbourne’s key counterculture locations, known for live music, organic food and second-hand clothes shops. Higginbotham produced several images that document the vibrancy of this movement, including a series of street photographs she made at the Greville Street Market on Saturday in 1975.

Wall text from the exhibition

Julie Higginbotham alumni profile on the Prahran Legacy website

Julie Higginbotham interview Prahran CAE 1971 – 74 Photography

Installation view of the first gallery of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing from left, Andrew Chapman’s photographs Anti Fraser demonstrator, Collins Street Melbourne 1979; Tribune newspaper seller, Melbourne 1980; Party supporter, Liberal Party campaign launch, Moorabbin Town Hall 1980
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Andrew Chapman (Australian, b. 1954) 'Tribune newspaper seller, Melbourne' 1980 (installation view)

Andrew Chapman (Australian, b. 1954)
Tribune newspaper seller, Melbourne (installation view)
1980
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated 2024
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Andrew Chapman (Australian, b. 1954) 'Tribune newspaper seller, Melbourne' 1980 from the exhibition 'The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981)' at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne, March - May 2025

Andrew Chapman (Australian, b. 1954)
Tribune newspaper seller, Melbourne (installation view)
1980
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated 2024

Andrew Chapman (Australian, b. 1954) 'Party supporter, Liberal Party campaign launch, Moorabbin Town Hall' 1980 (installation view)

Andrew Chapman (Australian, b. 1954)
Party supporter, Liberal Party campaign launch, Moorabbin Town Hall (installation view)
1980
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated 2024
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Rob Gale (Australian, b. 1953) 'Untitled 01' 1978 (installation view)

Rob Gale (Australian, b. 1953)
Untitled 01 (installation view)
1978
From the series Swanston Street 5pm
Pigment ink-jet print, printed 2024
Collection of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Rob Gale studied photography at Prahran Collect from 1976 to 1978. For his series, Swanston Street, 5pm (1978), Gale took inspiration from an iconic painting by the Australian artist John Brack, Collins Street, 5pm (1955). Gale’s photographic exploration of Brack’s stylised view of Melbourne’s office workers was made during peak hour at a busy tram stop near Flinders Street Station. Influenced by American street photographers such as Bruce Golden and Weegee, Gale used a hand-held flash to illuminate his subjects. In a nod to Brack’s painting, this technique allowed Gale to create harsh, stylised views of impatient commuters. The flash also seems to have induced grimaces and sideways stares which, along with the harsh lighting, shadows and unusual camera angles, served to accentuate the strange and surreal atmosphere in the photographs.

Wall text from the exhibition

Rob Gale alumni profile on the Prahran Legacy website

Rob Gale (Australian, b. 1953)
'Untitled 12' 1978 from the series 'Swanston Street 5pm' from the exhibition 'The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981)' at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne, March - May 2025

Rob Gale (Australian, b. 1953)
Untitled 12
1978
From the series Swanston Street 5pm
Pigment ink-jet print, printed 2024
Collection of the artist

Installation view of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing photographs from left clockwise, Steven Lojewsi’s Man with umbrella near curb, Melbourne 1975; Johann Krix’s Proud moment, Moomba c. 1971; and Andrew Wittner’s Where’s my car, Melbourne 1973
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Andrew Wittner (Australian, b. 1955)
Where’s My Car?
1973, printed 2024
Gelatin silver print
Collection of the artist

Andrew Wittner alumni profile on the Prahran Legacy website

Steven Lojewsi (Australian born England, b. 1952) 'Man with umbrella near curb, Melbourne' 1975 (installation view)

Steven Lojewsi (Australian born England, b. 1952)
Man with umbrella near curb, Melbourne (installation view)
1975
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated 2025
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Steven Lojewski was born in London and grea up in Canada before arriving in Australian in 1969. He studied photography at Prahran College from 1974 to 1976 and later at Sydney College of the Arts. While studying at Prahran, Lojewski made a number of photographs on the streets of Melbourne. Sparsely populated, these early-career vintage prints demonstrate Lojewski’s highly defined, formal approach to documenting the urban landscape and illustrate his ability to produce a subtle range of silvery mid-tones and carefully styled compositions.

Wall text from the exhibition

Steven Lojewski alumni profile on the Prahran Legacy website

Steven Lojewsi (Australian born England, b. 1952)
Man with umbrella near curb, Melbourne
1975
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated 2025

Installation view of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing at left, John Conte’s Telephone, Prahran 1971; at centre top, Philip Quirk’s Lone ranger (Prahran resident with Royal Show souvenirs) 1973; at centre bottom, Philip Quirk’s The headmistress, sports day, Como Park 1975; and at right, Johann Krix’s Toorak Road, South Yarra 1972
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Philip Quirk (Australian, b. 1948)
'Lone ranger (Prahran resident with Royal Show souvenirs)' 1973 (installation view)

Philip Quirk (Australian, b. 1948)
Lone ranger (Prahran resident with Royal Show souvenirs) (installation view)
1973
Gelatin silver print
15.9 x 23.8cm
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection acquired 2024
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Based in Sydney, Philip Quirk has been a practising documentary photographer since the 1970s. He studied photography at Prahran College from 1971 to 1973 and has frequently used his camera to capture endearing images of humanity. Influenced by international photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Diane Arbus, Quirk’s images feature unusual characters and situations, often incorporating humour and incongruity. His work, Lone ranger (Prahran resident with Royal Show souvenirs) (1973) formed part of his final portfolio assessment at Prahran College. Walking through the streets of Prahran, Quirk stopped to talk to this elderly resident and photographed him in the afternoon sunlight. With its emphasis on light and composition combined with an interest in Australian culture, this photograph is a precursor to the street and social documentary work Quirk produced in the years immediately following his time at Prahran College.

Wall text from the exhibition

Phil Quirk alumni profile on the Prahran Legacy website

Johann Krix (Australian born Austria, b. 1948) 'Toorak Road, South Yarra' 1972 (installation view)

Johann Krix (Australian born Austria, b. 1948)
Toorak Road, South Yarra (installation view)
1972
Gelatin silver print
Collection of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing Robert Ashton’s photographs, Champion Jackpot 1974; Builders Arms Hotel 1974; Family 1974 from the series Fitzroy
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Robert Ashton (Australian, b. 1950)
'Champion Jackpot' 1974, printed 2008 (installation view)

Robert Ashton (Australian, b. 1950)
Champion Jackpot (installation view)
1974, printed 2008
Pigment inkjet print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection acquired 2010
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Robert Ashton studied photography at Prahran college from 1968 to 1970 and first exhibited his work at Brummels Gallery of Photography in 1973. As a student at Prahran, Ashton recalls being taught to follow his heart and his eye in a way that was free of constraints, developing a visual language influenced by the style of European black-and-white photography that he was introduced to by Paul Cox. His early documentary work concentrated on inner-city subjects, and he is widely known for his acclaimed series Fitzroy, which warmly documents the people of Fitzroy, focusing on human life and community connection. This series was originally published as a photobook, Into the hollow mountains a portrait of Fitzroy, in 1974.

Wall text from the exhibition

Robert Ashton alumni profile on the Prahran Legacy website

Installation view of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing from left clockwise, Geoff Strong’s Bald man enjoying the sun, St Kilda 1975; Steven Lojewski’s Man with hat and lighthouse, St Kilda 1975; Glen O’Malley’s St Kilda 1973; and Steven Lojewski’s Man on bench, Stardust St Kilda 1975
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Geoff Strong (Australian, b. 1950)
Bald man enjoying the sun, St Kilda
1975
Gelatin silver print
19.1 x 26.3cm
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated 2025

Geoff Strong moved to Melbourne from Brisbane for the photography course at Prahran College, which he began in 1975 after already having established himself as a political journalist. Strong’s image, Bald man enjoying the sun, St Kilda (1975) showcases his acute interest in the qualities of Melbourne’s sunlight. The human element, a man’s bald head, becomes a formal, compositional device, which appears more like a bronze ball than a human form. Strong’s depiction of harsh light in this sparse composition accentuates the photograph’s formal elements and calls to mind the surreal paintings of Georgio de Chirico.

Text from the Museum of Australian Photography website

Geoff Strong alumni profile on the Prahran Legacy website

Steven Lojewsi (Australian born England, b. 1952) 'Man with hat and lighthouse, St Kilda' 1975 (installation view)

Steven Lojewsi (Australian born England, b. 1952)
Man with hat and lighthouse, St Kilda (installation view)
1975
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated 2025
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

James McArdle (Australian, b. 1950)
'Couple, Luna Park' 1976 (installation view)

James McArdle (Australian, b. 1950)
Couple, Luna Park (installation view)
1976
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated 2025
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

James McArdle (Australian, b. 1950)
'Conscript, Luna Park' 1976 (installation view)

James McArdle (Australian, b. 1950)
Conscript, Luna Park (installation view)
1976
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated 2025
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

James McArdle is a photographic artist, curator, writer and educator based in Castlemaine, Victoria. While studying photography at Prahran College from 1974 to 1976, McArdle took his camera out onto the streets of Melbourne. He made several social documentary images as well as more playful, abstract compositions, which highlight his interest in shadow and form. The vintage silver gelatin prints on display here come mostly from McArdle’s first-and second-year street photography folios. They were made during long walks around St Kilda and Elwood. Conscript, Luna Park (1976) formed part of McArdle’s third-year major project on Luna Park, which included portraits taken in the Penny Arcade. Created using a Linhof 4 x 5 inch press camera and flash, this folio was assessed by Wolfgang Sievers.

Wall text from the exhibition

Dr James McArdle profile on the Academia website

Installation view of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing from left clockwise, James McArdle’s Hungry puddle, Elwood 1975 and St Kilda Courthouse 1974; Martin Munz’s Man at crossing, Lower Esplanade St Kilda 1979; and Greg Neville’s Man and shadow 1971
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

James McArdle (Australian, b. 1950)
Hungry puddle, Elwood
1975
Gelatin silver print
27.0 x 18.5cm
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated by James McArdle in honour of John Cato 2025

Greg Neville (Australian, b. 1950) 'Man and shadow' 1971 (installation view)

Greg Neville (Australian, b. 1950)
Man and shadow (installation view)
1971
Gelatin silver print
Collection of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing Sandra Graham’s photographs Walls 3 (Joseph) and Walls 2 (cloak 1) 1976 from the series Walls (left); and Backstage, Chapel street bridge, Prahran 1976 (right)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Sandra Graham (Australian, b. 1947)
'Walls 3 (Joseph)' 1976 (installation view)

Sandra Graham (Australian, b. 1947)
Walls 3 (Joseph) (installation view)
1976
Gelatin silver print
Collection of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Formal concerns permeate the street portraits by Sandra Graham who studied photography at Prahran college fromollege from 1974-1975. In her series Walls, Graham relates the human forms of her subjects to the textured walls behind them. For instance, in Walls 3 (Joseph) (1976), the weathered face and stained clothes of a painter are shown in front of a mottled wall that he is about to paint white. Graham blends figure and ground in this image, playing with tonal relationships in black and white. She creates a painterly style of flatness through this series, which was made on streets around St Kilda and Albert Park.

Wall text from the exhibition

Sandra Graham alumni profile on the Prahran Legacy website

Sandra Graham (Australian, b. 1947)
Walls 3 (Joseph)
1976
Gelatin silver print
Collection of the artist

Gallery two section one (clockwise)

Installation views of the second gallery part A of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Wall text from the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Lyn Cheong (Australian, b. 1954)
'Self-portrait' 1977; 'Self-portrait' 1977 (installation view)

Lyn Cheong (Australian, b. 1954)
Self-portrait (installation view)
1977
Self-portrait (installation view)
1977
Dye diffusion transfer prints
Collection of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Nicholas Nedelkopoulos (Australian, b. 1955)
'Shrunken head' 1978-1991; 'Dark wedding' 1978-1990 (installation view)

Nicholas Nedelkopoulos (Australian, b. 1955)
Shrunken head (installation view)
1978-1991
Dark wedding (installation view)
1978-1990
Chromogenic prints
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection acquired 1992
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Nicholas Nedelkopoulos (Australian, b. 1955) 'Shrunken head' 1978-1991 (installation view)

Nicholas Nedelkopoulos (Australian, b. 1955)
Shrunken head (installation view)
1978-1991
Chromogenic print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection acquired 1992
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Leonie Reisberg (Australian, b. 1955) 'Portrait of Peggy Silinski, Merimbula, NSW' 1974 (installation view)

Leonie Reisberg (Australian, b. 1955)
Portrait of Peggy Silinski, Merimbula, NSW (installation view)
1974
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated by Janice Hinderaker through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program 2023
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Leonie Reisberg attended Prahran College between 1974 and 1975, where she developed her photographic practice. Her work from this period is often associated with a growing interest in experimental and documentary photography that emerged in Melbourne during the 1970s.

Reisberg’s approach blends real-life moments with a more composed and conceptual style, often exploring themes of intimacy, femininity and social dynamics. She is part of a cohort of photographers that helped shape the trajectory of contemporary Australian photography, particularly within the context feminist and documentary practices.

Wall text from the exhibition

Leonie Reisberg alumni profile on the Prahran Legacy website

Leonie Reisberg (Australian, b. 1955)
Portrait of Peggy Silinski, Merimbula, NSW
1974
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated by Janice Hinderaker through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program 2023

Installation view of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing at centre, Andrew Chapman’s Self-portrait in bath 1975; and at right, Viki Petherbridge’s Frames 10-18 1975 from the series Frames
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Viki Petherbridge (Australian, b. 1954) 'Frames 10-18' 1975 (installation view)

Viki Petherbridge (Australian, b. 1954)
Frames 10-18 (installation view)
1975
from the series Frames
Gelatin silver print
Collection of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Wall text from the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing Peter Milne’s photographs from top clockwise, Rowland S Howard 1977; Polly Borland 1979; and Rowland S Howard, Nick Cave, Ollie Olsen, Megan Bannister, Anita Lane, Bronwyn Adams 1977
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Peter Milne (Australian, b. 1960)
'Rowland S Howard' 1977 (installation view)

Peter Milne (Australian, b. 1960)
Rowland S Howard (installation view)
1977
Pigment inkjet print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated by Helen Frajman 2023
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Peter Milne began his studies at Prahran College in 1980. Prior to this, he had already begun photographing his friends, family, and the Melbourne punk scene in the mid-to late 1970s. Over the following decades, Milne captured a range of cultural icons, including Nick Cave, Rowland S Howard and Polly Borland. Known for his intimate and warm portraiture, Milne uses dramatic lighting to create strong compositions. His images of Rowland S Howard, in particular, highlight these techniques, with some photographs featuring Howard in striking light or set against brutalist architecture.

Wall text from the exhibition

See the exhibition Juvenilia: Peter Milne at Strange Neighbour, Fitzroy, Melbourne February – March 2015

Peter Milne (Australian, b. 1960)
Polly Borland
1979
Pigment ink-jet print
48 x 32cm
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated by Helen Frajman 2021

Polly Borland (Australian, b. 1959)
'Dave' 1983, printed 2025 (installation view)

Polly Borland (Australian, b. 1959)
Dave (installation view)
1983, printed 2025
Silver dye bleach print
Collection of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Polly Borland attended Prahran College between 1980 and 1983. Borland shot most of her student work, featured here, on Kodachrome. She shot the works in her Camberwell apartment with direct sunlight pouring through the window. Pieces of carefully placed cellophane on the window created coloured shadows across the subjects’ faces. …

Borland and Cave first began working together in the early 1980s after they met at a party in St Kilda in 1979. The image of Borland at the St Kilda party is documented by fellow friend Peter Milne. Borland’s formative photographs in the early 1980s were part of a new wave of experimental images that departed from renderings of ordinary life.

Wall text from the exhibition

Polly Borland (Australian, b. 1959) 'Nick' 1983, printed 2025 (installation view)

Polly Borland (Australian, b. 1959)
Nick (installation view)
1983, printed 2025
Silver dye bleach print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection acquired 2025
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Polly Borland (Australian, b. 1959)
Nick
1983, printed 2025
Silver dye bleach print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection acquired 2025

Polly Borland made this work during her student days at Prahran College where she studied between 1980 and 1983. Borland shot most of her student work on Kodachrome. Shot on Kodachrome, this work forms part of a series of portraits Borland made in her Camberwell apartment with direct sunlight pouring through the window. Pieces of carefully placed cellophane on the window created coloured shadows across the subjects’ faces.

Borland’s images of Nick Cave from the 1980s and 1990s have become legendary. Often described as raw and intense, these images highlight the tension between the public persona of the famous musician and the more vulnerable, human side of the singer and artist. Borland and Cave first began working together in the early 1980s after they met at a party in St Kilda in 1979.

Text from the Museum of Australian Photography website

Installation view of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing from top left clockwise, Christopher Köller’s photographs Past self portrait 1980; Philip and Maria 1981; Joe as a Russian soldier 1980; and Bauhausler (homage to Oscar Schlemmer and August Sander) 1980
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Christopher Köller (Australian born England, b. 1943)
Past self-portrait
1980
Gelatin silver print
23.0 x 24.0cm
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection acquired 2024

Christopher Köller trained as a silk-screen printer before travelling extensively throughout the late 1960s and 1970s. Upon his return to Australia, Köller studied photography at Prahran college fromollege, graduating in 1980. Köller enrolled in Prahran with the intention of doing an expose on the conditions experienced by the miners of Bolivia as he had learnt about their plight while travelling in South America.

In his second year Köller stopped looking at photography books and started poring over the pages of art book, influenced by his now partner and historian Nanette Carter and lecturer Norbert Loeffler. Inspired by these teachings, Köller started to set up his images. His first self-portrait titled Past self portrait (1980) is an image of a young artist arriving at Station Pier, Melbourne with his passport in hand. It was part of a series of self-portraits that were shown at The Photographers’ Gallery and Workshop. Other works in this period were influenced by Russian Constructivism – particularly Vladimir Mayakovsky – and 1930s German avant-garde art. In another image, Köller’s subject, dressed in a shirt and tie, stand in front of an Oskar Schlemmer drawing, made by the artist.

Wall text from the exhibition

Christopher Köller alumni profile on the Prahran Legacy website

Christopher Köller (Australian born England, b. 1943) 'Joe as a Russian soldier' 1980 (installation view)

Christopher Köller (Australian born England, b. 1943)
Joe as a Russian soldier (installation view)
1980
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection acquired 2024
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Christopher Köller (Australian born England, b. 1943)
Joe as a Russian soldier
1980
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection acquired 2024

Installation view of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing Nanette Carter’s photographs Proof 1979 and Newspaper 1980
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Nanette Carter (Australian, b. 1954) 'Proof' 1979 (installation view)

Nanette Carter (Australian, b. 1954)
Proof (installation view)
1979
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection acquired 1981
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Nanette Carter studied first-year photography at Prahran College in 1974 and then completed a diploma (1977) and post graduate diploma (1980) in fine art at the Phillip Institute of Technology, majoring in photography. Her practice explored feminist issues with autobiographical overtones, and she exhibited her work widely between 1981 and 1995. She ceased practising as a Photographer in the early 1990s to pursue her career as a lecturer in design history.

Carter’s image Proof (1979) is a striking self-portrait that reflects on the concept of identity and addresses the idea of photographic ‘proof’ in a multifaceted way. The word written across her face explores the proof of identity and the assertion of existence that photography claims. Newspaper (1980) utilities her partner Christopher Köller as subject. From early on in their relationship, Carter and Köller used each other as models.

Wall text from the exhibition

Nanette Carter alumni profile on the Prahran Legacy website

Nanette Carter (Australian, b. 1954)
Proof
1979
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection acquired 1981

Installation view of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing from left clockwise, Rod McNicol’s photographs Nanette 1978; Stewart 1978; and Kent 1978 from the series Permanent mirrors
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Rod McNicol (Australian, b. 1946)
'Nanette' 1978 (installation view)

Rod McNicol (Australian, b. 1946)
Nanette (installation view)
1978
From the series Permanent mirrors
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated 2024
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Rod McNicol (Australian, b. 1946)
Nanette
1978
From the series Permanent mirrors
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated 2024

Rod McNicol has been drawn to portraiture ever since he attended Prahran College in 1974. His fellow classmates included Nanette Carter and Bill Henson, and he formed a close connection with Athol Shmith, who would become, in McNicol’s words, ‘a lifelong mentor and friend’. McNicol held his first exhibition and Brummels Gallery of Photography with Carol Jerrems, where he exhibited works from his Permanent mirrors series. This exhibition marked a transition to what McNicol would call his structured approach to portraiture. In the image Nanette, McNicol made a makeshift studio on Paul Cox’s front veranda and placed Carter against a neutral backdrop.

In late 1978, McNicol moved into his warehouse apartment on Smith Street, Fitzroy. Since this move, he has incorporated this space into his work and it has become an important component, both as a location and as an aesthetic context.

Wall text from the exhibition

Rod McNicol alumni profile on the Prahran Legacy website

Rod McNicol (Australian, b. 1946)
'Kent' 1978 (installation view)

Rod McNicol (Australian, b. 1946)
Kent (installation view)
1978
From the series Permanent mirrors
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection acquired 2013
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Rod McNicol’s series of portraits Permanent mirrors grew out of his interest in nineteenth-century photographic portraiture, whereby the slow exposure times necessitated what he calls a ‘gauche, self-conscious, fatalist stare’. For McNicol, these portraits carried the ‘spectre of mortality itself’. The environmental portraits that make up his Permanent mirrors series embody many of the formal attributes of nineteenth-century portraiture that appealed to him, insofar as the sitters are seated in highly static poses, staring directly and blankly at the camera. Soon after, McNicol introduced a range of highly significant formal changes to his portraits, whereby sitters were photographed on a kitchen chair against a plain, neutral background in the artist’s Fitzroy studio. McNicol continues to photograph people from his neighbourhood in this way.

Text from the Museum of Australian Photography website

Installation view of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing from left top to bottom, Stella Sallman’s photographs Sue at the mirror 1977; Sue on the bed 1977; Sue and Carmen 1978; Sue, Simon and Carmen 1977; Beautiful transvestite 1975
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Stella Sallman (Australian, b. 1956)
'Sue and Carmen' 1978 (installation view)

Stella Sallman (Australian, b. 1956)
Sue and Carmen (installation view)
1978
Chromogenic print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection acquired 2025
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Stella Sallman attended Prahran College from 1976 to 1978. She had originally planned to study fashion design at RMIT, but she was unable pursue the course because she didn’t have a folio. Instead, after completing the preliminary year in Art and Design at Prahran College, she discovered a deep fascination with photography.

Sallman was invited by Rennie Ellis to exhibit her series of glam punks, which she started in her second year, at Brummels Gallery of Photography in 1978, as a support for fellow photographer Jon Rhodes. She said, ‘Rennie came and did some lectures at Prahran. I found him very inspiring because he wasn’t about things looking technically correct.’ He was also brimming with ‘exuberant enthusiastic positive energy.’ The 13 works exhibited at Brummels were portraits of people that Sallman had encountered. Sallman had seen Sue whilst travelling on a train and asked if she could take her portrait. ‘I was very curious about people that didn’t conform.’ In Sallman’s images, she uses colour to emphasise the personality and mood of her subjects, challenging the more traditional, formal portraiture that had prevailed at the time.

Wall text from the exhibition

Stella Sallman alumni profile on the Prahran Legacy website

Gallery two section two (clockwise)

Carol Jerrems (Australian, 1949-1980) Letter from the 'Alphabet folio' 1968 dated 1969 (installation view)

Carol Jerrems (Australian, 1949-1980)
Letters from the Alphabet folio (installation views)
1968 dated 1969
Gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased 1971
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Carol Jerrem’s Alphabet folio is one of her most celebrated and iconic works, and it holds an important place in the history of Australian photography, Created as an assignment during her time as a student at Prahran College, the Alphabet folio consists of 25 letters, with the letter ‘S’ deliberately omitted by Jerrems. The assignment left a lasting impression on Jerrems, as she regularly set this assignment for her own students when she was teaching at the Heidelberg Technical School and the Tasmania School of Art.

Wall text from the exhibition

Carol Jerrems studied at Prahran College between 1967-1969 and graduated in 1970, studying under lecturers McKenzie, Cox, and Lee.

Carol Jerrems alumni profile on the Prahran Legacy website

These photographs of the model Lynn Allen and her then boyfriend are part of a set of assignment images from the late 1960s, when Jerrems was studying at Prahran College. Jerrems and Allen met at High School (Jerrems was one year ahead) and they lived one street apart from each other when these images were taken. Allen modelled for Jerrems for two years.

Wall text from the exhibition

Carol Jerrems (Australian, 1949-1980) 'No title' 1969; 'No title' 1969 (installation view)

Carol Jerrems (Australian, 1949-1980)
No title (installation view)
1969
No title (installation view)
1969
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated 2024
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Carol Jerrems (Australian, 1949-1980) 'No title' 1969 (installation view)

Carol Jerrems (Australian, 1949-1980)
No title (installation view)
1969
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated 2024
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing Carol Jerrems’ photographs at left top, Kath Walker 1974; at bottom left, Thancouple (Gloria Fletcher) and Carole Johnson 1974; and at right, Ron Johnson 1974
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Carol Jerrems (Australian, 1949-1980) 'Thancouple (Gloria Fletcher) and Carole Johnson' 1974 (installation view)

Carol Jerrems (Australian, 1949-1980)
Thancouple (Gloria Fletcher) and Carole Johnson (installation view)
1974
Gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Gift of Mrs Joy Jerrems 1981
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Carol Jerrems (Australian, 1949-1980)
Ron Johnson
1974
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australia Photography, City of Monash Collection donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program 2015
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing Carol Jerrem’s photographs at left, Esoteric personal (mini) recent exhibition 1976; at top right, Vale Street 1975; at bottom right, Juliet holding ‘Vale Street’ at Murray Road 1976
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Carol Jerrems (Australian, 1949-1980) 'Esoteric personal (mini) recent exhibition' 1976 (installation view)

Carol Jerrems (Australian, 1949-1980)
Esoteric personal (mini) recent exhibition (installation view)
1976
Gelatin silver prints
Private collection
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Carol Jerrems (Australian, 1949-1980) 'Vale Street' 1975 (installation view)

Carol Jerrems (Australian, 1949-1980)
Vale Street (installation view)
1975
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australia Photography, City of Monash Collection donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Susan Hesse 2012
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Carol Jerrems (Australian, 1949-1980)
Vale Street
1975
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australia Photography, City of Monash Collection donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Susan Hesse 2012

In 1975, Carol Jerrems made what would become her most famous photograph. Vale Street shows Jerrem’s friend Catriona Brown standing in front of Mark Lean and Jon Bourke, teenage boys from Heidelberg Technical School where Jerrems was teaching at the time. The photograph, taken in the back yard of a house at 52 Vale Street, St Kilda, comes from a series of pictures that show the three subjects socialising, smoking and, under the direction of Jerrems, gradually disrobing. Jerrems carefully set up and managed this no-iconic image, which quickly came to personify the optimism and ambitions of countercultural and feminist politics at the time

Wall text from the exhibition

Installation view of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing Paul Cox’s photographs with at left, Age of Aquarius (Carol Jerrems, Jan Hurrell) 1970; at centre top, Elizabeth 1 1972; at centre bottom, Fantasy of divine illusion 1972; and at right, Prahran 2 1974
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Paul Cox (Australian born Netherlands, 1940-2016) 'Age of Aquarius (Carol Jerrems, Jan Hurrell)' 1970 (installation view)

Paul Cox (Australian born Netherlands, 1940-2016)
Age of Aquarius (Carol Jerrems, Jan Hurrell)
1970
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australia Photography, City of Monash Collection donated by the artist through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Paul Cox played a pivotal role in the Photography Department at Prharan College, initially appointed part-time in February 1968, he transitioned to full-time position in 1970 and continued teaching photography and filmmaking until his departure in 1982. Younger than colleagues such as Cato and Shmith, Cox’s age helped him forge strong, personal connections with his students. Many alumni attribute their exposure to international photography luminaries to Cox’s influence. However, it was Cox’s own distinctive approach to photography that left a lasting impact on his students. Cox moved to Australia from the Netherlands in 1965 and although he was not formally trained as a teacher, he brought with him a European sensibility.

In 1973, Cox founded The Photographers’ Gallery and Workshop, alongside Ingeborg Tyssen, John F William and Rod McNicol, a groundbreaking space that played a crucial role in establishing photography as a respected art form in Australia and provided a vital platform for contemporary photographers.

Wall text from the exhibition

Paul Cox on the Prahran Legacy website

Paul Cox (Australian born Netherlands, 1940-2016) 'Age of Aquarius (Carol Jerrems, Jan Hurrell)' 1970

Paul Cox (Australian born Netherlands, 1940-2016) 'Fantasy of divine illusion' 1972 (installation view)

Paul Cox (Australian born Netherlands, 1940-2016)
Fantasy of divine illusion (installation view)
1972
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australia Photography, City of Monash Collection donated by the artist through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Paul Cox (Australian born Netherlands, 1940-2016) 'Prahran 2' 1974 (installation view)

Paul Cox (Australian born Netherlands, 1940-2016)
Prahran 2 (installation view)
1974
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australia Photography, City of Monash Collection donated by the artist through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Wall text from the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation views of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne with artefacts in a vitrine, showing a poster for an exhibition by Tod McNicol and Carol Jerrems at Brummels Gallery of Photography, August – September 1978; two letters from Carol Jerrems including at bottom a letter to William (Bill) Heimerman (1950-2017) co-director at the time of The Photographers’ Gallery and Workshop; and two gelatin silver prints by Carol Jerrems
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing at far left a photograph by Paul Cox, at second and third left photographs by Athol Shmith and at centre, photographs by John Cato
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing at left, Paul Cox’s Portrait of Athol Shmith 2 1983; and at right, Athol Shmith’s Anamorphic image No. 17 and Anamorphic image No. 1 both 1973
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Athol Shmith is widely known for his commercial portraiture and fashion photography. His style became emblematic of an era that was transitioning from the more formal rigid photographic style of the early 20th century to something more dramatic. His portraits are highly polished, sophisticated and capture the essence of the post-war era’s glamour.

Shmith’s sale was characterised by a strong focus on lighting and composition, often using dramatic lighting setups to create bold, striking images. As Head of the Photography Department from 1972 to 1979 Art Prahran College, Shmith brought a high level of technical expertise.

Shmith created his Anamorphic series while teaching at Prahran College, and exhibited the series at Realities Gallery in 1973. Student Suzanne Budds recalls being a model for one of the images in this series.

Wall text from the exhibition

Athol Shmith Lecturer profile on the Prahran Legacy website

Paul Cox (Australian born Netherlands, 1940-2016) 'Portrait of Athol Shmith 2' 1983 (installation view)

Paul Cox (Australian born Netherlands, 1940-2016)
Portrait of Athol Shmith 2 (installation view)
1983
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australia Photography, City of Monash Collection donated by the artist through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program 2000
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing from left, John Cato’s photographs Seawind 1871-1975; Tree – a journey 1971-1973; and Tree – a journey #13 1971-1973 from the series Essay I: landscape in a figure 1971-1979
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

John Cato (Australian, 1926-2011) 'Tree - a journey' 1971-1973 (installation view)

John Cato (Australian, 1926-2011)
Tree – a journey (installation views)
1971-1973
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated by the Cato Estate 2021

John Cato (Australian, 1926-2011)
Tree – a journey
1971-1973
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated by the Cato Estate 2021

John Cato began his informal studies in photography with his father, the photographer Jack Cato, in 1938. He worked as a commercial photographer from 1947 to 1974, including a notable stint as a press photographer for The Argus from 1947 to 1950. Over the course of his career, Cato collaborated with Athol Shmith for more than two decades, before shifting away from commercial photography in 1974 to focus on his own fine art practice. That same year, Cato also embarked on his career as a photography educator, taking a teaching position at Prahran College, eventually succeeding Shmith as Head of the Photography Department in 1980.

Cato was known for his mystical and spiritual approach to photography, a philosophy that deeply influenced both his teaching style and his own photographic work. His method was unconventional, emphasising not just technical skill, but the creation of images with a deeper, almost transcendent resonance. Many of Cato’s works are minimalist, capturing quiet, still moments in nature, where form and texture take precedence over literal representation. These images often have an abstract quality, inviting the viewer to engage with the landscape on a more introspective, emotional level. Cato’s photography was not just about capturing a scene, it was about evoking a deeper connection to the transformative power of the natural world.

Wall text from the exhibition

Read my Vale to Dr John Cato (1926-2011)

John Cato on the Prahran Legacy website

John Cato (Australian, 1926-2011) 'Tree - a journey #13' 1971-1973 (installation view)

John Cato (Australian, 1926-2011)
Tree – a journey #13 (installation views)
1971-1973
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated by the artist
Acquired 1981

John Cato (Australian, 1926-2011)
Tree – a journey #13
1971-1973
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated by the artist
Acquired 1981

“Thanks are due to…. Phil Quirk, Peter Leiss, and the now deceased Jon Conte, who started finding alumni (starting with those of 1968-1972) in 2012; Colin Abbott who encouraged Photonet gallery (now MAGNET) in 2014 to put on a show of 1 sample each of student-era and contemporary work of most of the 1974-1976 cohort; Colin has generously part-funded the book that MAPh has produced; designer and archivist Mimmo Cozzolino has contributed beautifully preserved ephemera from his College years, as well as donating his design skills to the ongoing project. Peter Leiss, assisted by Nicholas Nedelkopoulos, produced fine video interviews with alumni… a labour of love!

James McArdle joined the project in 2017. Merle Hathaway, who accepted an invitation to work with the team in 2021, has been an invaluable and key driver of the project in getting this exhibition (and future showings). Merle has secured upcoming shows of contemporary work by 1968-1991 alumni for MAGNET (through May 2025), the BIFB (August 2025) and elsewhere…

Above all, MAPh curators, Angela Connor and Stella-Loftus-Hills, have been extraordinary in their enthusiasm for the concept, and their realisation of it through their expertise and hard work and is beyond our wildest expectations. To have contributing writers of the calibre of Gael Newton, Helen Ennis, Daniel Palmer, Adrian Danks et al. is an honour and a further tribute to MAPh organisation and thoroughness.”

Associate Professor James McArdle

For more information please see The Prahran Photography website which upholds the legacy of Prahran College 1970s photography through posts on profiles of the alumni (an ongoing project). The site was initiated by James McArdle, who graduated in 1977 with a Diploma of Art and Design from Prahran College and Merle Hathaway, who coined the title, and who joins James in writing some of the posts.

Making film

Required to collaborate on a class film or create one of their own, photography students often took on multiple roles in each other’s projects. Paul Cox frequently cast his students as actors in his films, forging relationships that continued long after they graduated from college. In Cox’s productions, students also filled essential technical roles such as stills photographer and cinematographer. As well as developing their skills, this collaborative environment fostered a sense of community among aspiring filmmakers.

Paul Cox is known for his distinctive, often introspective films that explore human relationships, emotions, and existential themes. His work, while not always mainstream, is highly regarded in the Australian film industry and internationally for its emotional depth and unique storytelling style.

Mirka is a short film that features French-Australian visual artist Mirka Mora, a key figure in the Melbourne art scene. Mora gained recognition for her distinctive and colourful works, and her blend of surrealism, fantasy and personal experiences. The film explores her journey as an artist and her personal life, showcasing her experiences and her unique approach to art. The film offers a personal perspective into her world and is a rare glimpse into the life of one of Australia’s most beloved and influential artists.

Mirka was a collaborative project, directed by Paul Cox with the assistance of several Prahran students.

Student life

The students at Prahran College were part of a vibrant and dynamic environment that nurtured creativity, experimentation and community. Many drew inspiration from their immediate circles – friends and acquaintances – for their class assignments. They actively participated in exhibitions, showcasing their work to the public and their peers. Students presented their works in critique sessions that played a vital role in the learning process, providing a forum for discussion, debate and critical feedback.

Assignments often revolved around chosen topics such as fashion, portraiture or family, and sometimes involved field trips out into the landscape or excursions to places like hospitals, factories and the beach. Taking advantage of a ‘free assignment’ in 1976 a group of rebellious students got together to produce images of themselves dressed as revolutionaries, wearing clothes sourced from local opportunity shops and carrying real guns.

The images of students from Prahran College in the 1970s serve as visual documents of the bohemian spirit and encapsulate the idealism of the time. The way students were photographed, often in unposed and relaxed settings, captures the free-spirited nature of the College, with the camera becoming a tool for exploring vulnerability and personal expression, rather than just recording events or situations.

The legacy of the bohemian spirit that was cultivated at Prahran College during the 1970s is still evident in the work of contemporary Australian artists today, many of whom continue to embrace self-expression, individuality and alternative narratives.

Text from the Museum of Australian Photography website

Gallery three

Installation view of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing at left, Andrew Wittner’s photograph John Cato leading a group on a photographic expedition, Steve Lojewski using a film camera 1975; and at right, George Volakos’ Rye back beach 1 1972
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Andrew Wittner (Australian, b. 1955) 'John Cato leading a group on a photographic expedition, Steve Lojewski using a film camera' 1975, printed 2024 (installation view)

Andrew Wittner (Australian, b. 1955)
John Cato leading a group on a photographic expedition, Steve Lojewski using a film camera (installation view)
1975, printed 2024
Gelatin silver print
Collection of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

George Volakos (Australian born Greece, b. 1948) 'Rye back beach 1' 1972, printed 2024 (installation view)

George Volakos (Australian born Greece, b. 1948)
Rye back beach 1 (installation view)
1972, printed 2024
Gelatin silver print
Collection of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing photographs by Richard Muggleton, George Volakos, Colin Abbott, Graham Howe, Philip Quirk, Jim McFarlane, Greg Neville, Andrew Wittner, Peter Bowes, and an unknown photographer
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Julie Higginbotham (Australian, b. 1953)
Mirka film
1973
Pigment ink-jet print
Courtesy of the artist

Installation view of the exhibition The basement: photography from Prahran College (1968-1981) at the Museum of Australian Photography, Wheelers Hill, Melbourne showing photographs by Philip Quirk, Peter Leiss, and Peter Bowes including at centre left, Peter Leiss’ Untitled [Bill Heimerman (right) and Ian Lobb (left) at the rear of The Photographers’ Gallery] c. 1975-1980 (below); and at centre Peter Leiss’ Jean-Marc Le Pechoux 1976
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Ian Lobb was co-director of The Photographers’ Gallery and Workshop with Bill Heimerman. Jean-Marc Le Pechoux was editor of the important Light Vision: Australia’s international photography magazine launched in September 1977.

Read my Vale Ian Lobb (1948-2023), photographer
Read my Vale William Heimerman (1950-2017)

Peter Leiss (Australian born England, b. 1951)
Untitled [Bill Heimerman and Ian Lobb at the rear of the Photographers’ Gallery]
c. 1975-1980
Silver gelatin print

Greg Neville (Australian, b. 1950)
'Tutorial: lecturers and students [back row L–R Derrick Lee, Bryan Gracey, Athol Shmith, Paul Cox, Elizabeth Tainsh]' c. 1971 (installation view)

Greg Neville (Australian, b. 1950)
Tutorial: lecturers and students [back row L–R Derrick Lee, Bryan Gracey, Athol Shmith, Paul Cox, Elizabeth Tainsh] (installation view)
c. 1971
Pigment ink-jet print
Collection of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Greg Neville alumni profile on the Prahran Legacy website

Greg Neville (Australian, b. 1950)
Tutorial: lecturers and students [back row L–R Derrick Lee, Bryan Gracey, Athol Shmith, Paul Cox, Elizabeth Tainsh]
c. 1971
Pigment ink-jet print
Collection of the artist

Unidentified students with lecturers editing 35mm transparencies on a light box.

Summary of Bill Henson’s opening speech for The basement exhibition, 1st March, 2025

Internationally acclaimed photographer Bill Henson delivered a characteristically personal, challenging and reflective speech to mark the opening of The Basement.

He began his address by reminiscing about his time at Prahran in the mid-1970s – a period he remembered as unconventional and formative, despite his own intermittent attendance. “The only catch in my experience there is that I never went,” he quipped to rising laughter from the audience. Henson recalled how his interactions with lecturers such as John Cato and Athol Shmith shaped his artistic philosophy more than technical instruction ever could. “They were setting a moral example, an ethical example, an example of empathy,” he said, emphasising the profound impact their mentorship had on him.

Henson fondly and colourfully described Shmith, a glamorous portraitist who photographed Hollywood stars, and Cato, a figure of quiet wisdom, conjuring their style as an “imperious insouciance” – a blend of grandeur and carefree independence. He emphasised that, unlike today’s art educators who have to navigate academic formalities, these lecturers were practicing artists who brought hard-won experience into the classroom.

“They hadn’t gone through a professional teaching career,” Henson explained. “They weren’t like the kind of lecturer that I seem to see in art schools now, who have to go and get a ‘doctorate of painting’ to keep their job,” but were decidedly “outlandish” and unorthodox.

Their focus was not on rigid curricula but on fostering creativity and curiosity. “They were very generous with their comments,” Henson noted, recalling how they encouraged him to pursue his own path. He would disappear for months at a time, working on his own projects before returning with a bundle of photographs to share with his lecturers; “John would turn around and say, ‘Fuck, we thought you’d left!'” Despite his absences, they were formative in shaping his artistic independence, Shmith advised him to “just piss off and do your own work.”

Henson also shared anecdotes that highlighted the camaraderie and spontaneity of those years. One memorable moment was when Shmith surprised Henson by arranging for his work to be shown at the National Gallery of Victoria – a gesture that underscored his pride in his students’ potential. “That was as big a shock for me as anyone else,” Henson admitted.

Henson advised aspiring young artists to “try to be true to yourself, and don’t… stop… working!” Also important was intergenerational dialogue in art; he urged young people to seek wisdom from older artists before their insights are lost. Drawing on his own friendships with figures like Barry Humphries, Leo Schofield and Marc Newson, he highlighted how such exchanges enrich both parties through shared experiences and perspectives.

Beyond personal anecdotes, Henson used his speech to reflect on broader themes in art education and practice. He lamented what he sees as the increasing politicisation of contemporary art, which he believes has shifted focus away from aesthetics toward “box-ticking exercises” driven by ideology. While acknowledging that political movements such as feminism were present among Prahran’s students in the 1970s – “there were the feminists; there were little groups doing their social diligence” – he noted that these stances did not overshadow the college’s overarching emphasis on beauty and creative exploration. “There wasn’t this righteousness, this indignation, this kind of territorial thing about issues,” he said. In contrast was an openness and enthusiasm that defined Prahran during his time there – a place where beauty and creativity were paramount. Quoting Plato, he remarked, “Beauty is the splendour of truth,” positioning this ideal as central to artistic endeavour.

In opening The Basement exhibition Henson’s speech served not only as a tribute to Prahran College’s legacy – the enduring influence of its educators and alumni on Australia’s photographic landscape – but also as a call to preserve the values of curiosity, independence, and beauty in art.

Bill Henson opening speech summarised in James McArdle. “Opening!” on the On This Date in Photography website, 1st March, 2025 [Online] Cited 18/04/2025

Many thankx to James McArdle for allowing me to reproduce this text.

Julie Millowick (Australian, b. 1948)
'John Cato, PCAE basement, Prahran' 1976 (installation view)

Julie Millowick (Australian, b. 1948)
John Cato, PCAE basement, Prahran (installation view)
1976
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated by Julie Millowick 2024
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Julie Millowick (Australian, b. 1948)
John Cato, PCAE basement, Prahran
1976
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Australian Photography, City of Monash Collection donated by Julie Millowick 2024
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Peter Leiss (Australian born United Kingdom, b. 1951) 'Robert Besanko and Nanette Carter at The Photographers' Gallery, Punt Road' 1976 (installation view)

Peter Leiss (Australian born United Kingdom, b. 1951)
Robert Besanko and Nanette Carter at The Photographers’ Gallery, Punt Road (installation view)
1976
Gelatin silver print
Collection of the artist
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Peter Leiss alumni profile on the Prahran Legacy website

Stella Sallman (Australian, b. 1956)
'Peter Leiss' 1976 (installation view)

Stella Sallman (Australian, b. 1956)
Peter Leiss (installation view)
1976
Gelatin silver print
Private collection
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Carol Jerrems (Australian, 1949-1980) 'Rennie Ellis and Robert Ashton'
1976 (installation view)

Carol Jerrems (Australian, 1949-1980)
Rennie Ellis and Robert Ashton (installation view)
1976
Gelatin silver print
Private collection
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

In the early 1970s, advertising photographer and photojournalist Rennie Ellis with deputy director Robert Ashton reopened the space as Brummels Gallery of Photography. Assisted with two Arts Council grants, it was non-profit, and the first privately run art gallery in the country to be devoted specifically to photography…

The gallery closed in January 1980, the month before the premature death of its inaugural exhibitor, Carol Jerrems. Having run for eight years, the gallery had advanced the standing of photography as art and the careers of many Australian photographers including Warren Breninger, Godwin Bradbeer, Ponch Hawkes, David Moore, Gerard Groeneveld, Peter Leiss, Steven Lojewski, Rod McNicol, Wesley Stacey, Robert Ashton, Ian Dodd, Sue Ford, George Gittoes, Ashe Venn, John Williams, Jon Rhodes, Geoff Strong, Jean-Marc Le Pechoux and Henry Talbot.

“Brummels Gallery,” on the Wikipedia website

Carol Jerrems (Australian, 1949-1980) 'Paul Cox' 1977 (installation view)

Carol Jerrems (Australian, 1949-1980)
Paul Cox (installation view)
1977
Gelatin silver print
Private collection
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Museum of Australian Photography
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