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Australian Pictorial Photography:
A Survey of Art Photography from 1898 to 1938
Gael Newton 1979
The online version - click here
About:
The1979 publication, Australian Pictorial Photography: A Survey of Art Photography from 1898 to 1938, was a landmark exhibition and catalogue produced for the Art Gallery of New South Wales. It served as the first major scholarly attempt to document and validate the Pictorialist movement in Australia as a significant era of fine art.
The survey covered the four decades when Australian photographers moved away from purely "documentary" or "topographical" styles toward Pictorialism. This movement sought to elevate photography to the status of high art by emulating the aesthetic qualities of painting, etching, and drawing.
1898 was marked by the formation of influential camera clubs and the adoption of "artistic" techniques (like soft focus). Whereas 1938 is viewed as the twilight of Pictorialism as the crisp, high-contrast aesthetic of Modernism, led by figures like Max Dupain, began to dominate the Australian scene.
The publication highlighted key Australian pictorialist photographers such as
Harold Cazneaux: The central figure known for his "sunlight" effects and romanticized urban scenes of old Sydney.
Cecil Bostock: A key bridge between Pictorialism and later commercial modernism.
John Kauffmann: Often credited with bringing the "European" soft-focus style to Australia.
The Sydney Camera Circle: A group (including Cazneaux and Bostock) that established a specifically Australian Pictorial style, emphasizing the unique quality of Australian light over the misty, atmospheric styles popular in Europe.
The catalogue details the specific techniques used by these artists to distinguish "art" from the common snapshot, in particualr print manipulatio, the extensive use of bromoil, gum bichromate, and carbon printing to create textures that resembled charcoal or ink. The book focussed on "timeless" subjects, such as pastoral landscapes, romanticized urban architecture, and intimate portraits, often avoiding the harsh realities of industrialization.
Newton and later scholars have noted how the compositional styles of Japanese art (Japonisme) influenced Australian Pictorialists, as seen in the work of photographers like Ichiro Kagiyama and Harold Cazneaux (Miles, 2014)
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