Based
on text from the original book: Shades of Light:
Photography and Australia 1839-1988
Gael Newton, 1988 Australian National Gallery
Chapter 11 Live in the Year 1929
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Pictorialists
and Modernists
After
the war Pictorialism dominated the exhibitions of the various
societies
and most States had members whose work was outstanding.
Membership of the Sydney Camera Circle was at its peak with
successes in overseas exhibitions. The KODAK Salon in 1921
included a special
exhibition of their work(1). In
1924 and 1926 the Sydney Camera Circle members were behind
the formation of the Australian
Salon which
they hoped would become established in the international network
of major annual shows.
Cecil
Bostock designed and edited the two salon catalogues, called Cameragraphs,
each of over forty
pages and illustrated
with images
by some sixty photographers. The bulk of the illustrations
were of international Pictorialists’ work, although
to balance this, reports from the various States and New
Zealand
were included.
Harold
Cazneaux contributed lengthy reviews of the pictures in both
catalogues, which emphasised the ‘sincerity’ of
the authors and praised some scenes as ‘typically
Australian'(2). To modern eyes the fallacies of the Australian
school and
international Pictorialism are all too obvious.
Few
sunshine works or any characteristic Australian life and scenery
can
be found and in general all works, regardless
of
country, blur
into a bland 'world' of landscapes and quaint genre
subjects. The style of many Pictorialists simply resurrected
a picturesque
aesthetic already depleted at the turn of the century.
Only
a small number of works referred to contemporary events,
or even fashions in these years. which elsewhere are characterised
as the Roaring Twenties. The catalogue essays gave a
sense
of Australian
Pictorial photography having ‘arrived’ and
the exhibition of Australian work at the Royal Photographic
Society
in London
in 1928 would have confirmed
this view(3).
The
Australian Salon did not establish itself as an international
annual salon and leadership within Australia
passed
to the Victorian Salon formed in 1929. The success of the
salons,
in terms of substantial
catalogues, was not reached again until attempts
were made in the 1940s and 1950s to have annual illustrated
photography
exhibition
reviews with Australian Photography 1947 and Australian
Photography 1957 publications(4).
In
his editorial to the Cameragraphs 1926, Cecil Bostock noted
that:
The
Australian work appears to stand favourably against the English,
American. and Continental,
though the
outlook is
entirely different.
Freakism is less evident than ever, though there
are a few examples of the novelty type.
Fear
of freakism had been expressed with the first appearance of
the
fuzzy wuzzies’. The horror
at the prospect of untrammelled experiment and
individuality in Pictorial work
was one of the
contradictions of a movement supposedly dedicated
to the vision of its individual
exponents. Conflicting notions of the decorum
of Pictorial works had led to the departure of the
American Photo-Secessionists
from the English exhibitions in I909(5).
Bostock
may well have been more aware of the contrast
between Pictorial photography and the
modern world
than his comments
on freakism
suggest. He also noted the role that professionals
were playing in international exhibitions with
their perfection
of technique.
Nevertheless he reaffirmed the important belief
of the Pictorialists that amateurs still had
more time
to devote
to the 'art side' but
admitted that for some of the new exhibiting
professionals their 'love of their work suffices
to rise above the mere business end
of things’. His own still-life study
in the first salon was called Form and
light and
regarded
as rather
modern by
Cazneaux(6).
In
1917, when the New South Wales Photographic Society
had held its big salon only two exhibitors
were professionals(7).
By the
time of the Australian Salons there was a
new breed of professional
photographers whose jobs included product
advertising, industrial and architectural illustration and
other aspects of commercial
art. The illustrated magazine The Home was
a major patron of art
photographers in both their guises as amateur
Pictorialists and as commercial illustrators.
Other magazines,
for example Table
Talk, in Melbourne, provided additional
work but The Home was self-consciously
trendy and modern(8).
It was
directed
at the
same affluent readership
as formed many of Cazneaux’s and Ruth
Hollick’s
clients for portraiture.
Cazneaux’s
sun-striped child study, The bamboo
blind,
was featured prominently in the first issue
of The Home of I920(9) and
he had been appointed as their official
free-lance photographer. The association
between the
smart image cultivated by the magazine
and Cazneaux’s entry into independent
professional work was a ‘perfect
marriage’.
As Jack Cato wryly observed, other photographers
would have paid the
magazine to be included(10).
Cato was conspicuous by his absence from The Home although he did work
in the new field of illustration
for Melbourne
clients(11).
Cazneaux
had resigned from Freemans in 1918 following
a breakdown brought on by
overwork
as chief operator,
manager
and artist.
His decision was also fueled by the threat
of dismissal from Alfred
George, the owner, if he did not sign
a document precluding any rights to independent
work
as a Pictorial photographer(12).
During
his midlife crisis, Cazneaux perceived
that he could create a Pictorial-professional
genre of
his own
and proceeded
to advertise
his artistic photography
and natural at-home portrait service(13).
After
working from Bostock’s
studio in Phillip Street in 1919, Cazneaux
found he had enough work to be able to
operate from his home at Roseville, on
Sydney’s
North Shore without needing a city studio.
Cazneaux’s bitterness
at Alfred George and his long-standing
hatred of the indoor portrait studio
was such that in all of his subsequent
career
he continued
to ally with the ‘amateur’ status
of the Pictorial movement without acknowledging
that
he made
his living from
professional work in various forms all
his life.
Cecil
Bostock commenced his commercial photography on his return
from war service
in February
1920 and Monte
Luke
(1885-1962)
opened up a studio in The Strand in
1920 while maintaining a role as an exhibiting
art photographer. Luke had been involved
with
still photography and cinematography
for the theatre as an employee of J.C.
Williamson. He applied some of the
glamour of theatre and
social portraiture learnt during his
work in the theatre and a partnership
with the Falk studios in 1919. Luke
gained a reputation
for smart advertising work which often
utilised local ‘stars’ as
the models(14).
By
1927 Bostock was taking fashion photographs
for the David Jones Store,
and in 1929
he received a
commission to record
the building
of the new Elizabeth Street store(15).
He also began doing work for engineering and industrial firms,
although no
examples survive.
Bostock’s work was austere
by comparison with that of Luke or
Cazneaux, but in other ways his straightforward,
cool touch was suited to the new
styles of
art and advertising photography emanating
from Europe, and in particular Germany,
between 1927-1933(16).
By
the late 1920s Cazneaux had virtually
eclipsed any potential competitors
and remained the
star photographer for The
Home, to the point where the
magazine s image was synonymous
with
his photography
and the smart graphic artists whose
work took an increasingly prominent
place
within the
pages. Some pressure came
from editor, Leon Gellert,
for Cazneaux to try more adventurous
and stylised work but Cazneaux
remained faithful
to the
naturalism at the
core
of his Pictorialist
aesthetics(17).
However,
by the late 1920s he was making images
with
the clearer outlines and patterning
of Art Deco. His interest
in natural light effects was
given even freer rein by the taste for
bright, decorative geometric
illustrations. Possibly as early
as 1925 and certainly by 1928(18) Cazneaux
had made a dramatic image of
Martin Place from a fashionable
high angle as seen in
the pages of the overseas magazines
and Das Deutsche Lichtbild (German
Light Pictures) which published
pictorial and professional
work(19). Cazneaux made
another high-angle view of the
surfshooters
in which the bold vertical division
of the image with the black heads
of the surfers reduced to polka
dots, came as close to abstraction
as Cazneaux would ever go. He
also made a series of 'New Idea'
portraits for The Home featuring
painted
backdrops by leading modern decorative
artist
Adrian Feint (1894—1971).
These
were Art Deco glamour pieces
to which Cazneaux was not particularly
sympathetic.
They lacked
a real enthusiasm
for
decorativeness and
glamour that made similar social
portraiture overseas so striking.
Cazneaux’s glamour portraits
are rather prim compared to
the atmosphere of portraits
by Baron
De Meyer (c.1869—1946)
or emotional and moody studies
of stars Greta Garbo and Eleanor
Duse, by Arnold Genthe (1869—1942)
in the mid I 92Os(20).
The
'New Idea’ portraits,
however, were successful
enough to provide the illustration
for 'The Home’s
own advertising, which impelled
potential readers
to Live in the Year 1929’ by
subscribing to The Home, ‘the
one paper in Australia that
reflects the latest trend
of modern thought’.
Modernism cannot be ignored
. . . The
Home’s excursions into
modern photographic presentation
have never been excelled(21).
Cazneaux
was not of the same mould
as the readership of The Home.
He viewed modern
art and related
developments with
increasing disdain and
disapproval. He
was more at ease in a series
of portraits
made for The Home.
Social
Photograph Competition
of 1931 in which, although
virtually a staff
photographer,
he
carried off first,
second and third
prize. The portraits
were stunning studies of relaxed,
lovely
girls in natural outdoor
settings which
were
original
and unmatched by the
Modernist portrait paintings of
the period(22).
His
great skill as a photographer
had helped
him evolve a
style which retained
the storytelling
elements and
atmosphere of
Pictorialism, absorbed
the decorative patterning
of
Art Deco
through the use
of contours and sharper
light contrasts but
avoided the
unnatural angles
and distortion of other
Modernist
styles.
In some
ways he became the
first exponent of Modernism
by example but
not belief(23).
A
new scale: Modernism
In
1926 work on the great arch of the world’s largest single-span
bridge began from stanchions on the opposing sides of Sydney
Harbour. Sydneysiders watched for four years as the two arcs
rose higher and closer, until in August 1930, the arch was complete.
In honour of the occasion Ure Smith published a book of photographs
by Cazneaux of the recent progress of the bridge. The foreword
by Leon Gellert declared that it represented:
the
intrusion of the age of steel and the passing of individuality.
It is out of tune with the homestead and the hearth, and the
myriad historic residences, scores of which have been kicked
aside that its feet may be more firmly planted on the shores(24).
Cazneaux
made appropriately romantic and dramatic views for the publication
but would have held back from Gellert’s functionalist aesthetic
which described such engineering as 'a perfect object of art'.
Earlier
publications in the stable of The Home had predicted
the emergence of a similar aesthetic; Jean Curlewis writing in The
Home Pictorial Annual of 1928 embraced the Industrial Age
in passionate terms far removed from the idealised eternal harmonies
sought by the Pictorialists:
in
a year or two hence we shall lead our visitors to Walsh Bay
or Darling Island and bid them mark the pattern of bold masses
and intricate detail made against the sky by wheat silos(25).
There
were as yet no skyscrapers to enthuse over, these were delayed
until after the mid 1930s by the Depression. The monumental wheat
silos beside the docks at Pyrmont and the rugged, modern incinerators
designed by architect Walter Burley Griffin, were some of the
most awesome local examples of modern engineering apart from
the great bridge(26).
As
early as 1920 Henri Mallard had treated a submarine as a subject
for an exhibition photograph. He was so impressed by the significance
of the bridge that he made a 16 millimetre film, stereograph
and still photographic record of its construction(27).
Documents and art were evidently in different categories for
Mallard. When he printed the negatives for exhibitions he made
them into rather poor bromoils(28). One
of the last bromoils he made was a tribute to a steam train and
the decorative form of a railway signal of 1939(29). He continued
as an active member of the Photographic Society into the 1960s.
Mallard’s
stereographs and negatives of the bridge workers suggest an interest
in the workers such as expressed by American photographer, Lewis
Hine (1874-1940) in his coverage of the construction of the Empire
State Building in New York(30).
Mallard
had a sense of history and recording but his bromoil prints and
the remaining body of Pictorialist work shows that he did not
have a sense of the new documentary movement or any solidarity
with the workers.
A
Pictorialist with an understanding of the new world who visited
Australia in 1930 was English photographer E.O. Hoppé (1878-1972).
He had made his reputation in London for stylish social and theatrical
portraiture and from the mid 1920s had extended this with travel
books(31). He sent Cazneaux a personal
invitation to his Sydney exhibition in April 1930 at the David
Jones Gallery(32). The following year he
published his Australian work as The Fifth Continent(33). It
was one of the earliest national photographic coverages by an
art photographer. anticipating Frank Hurley’s stream of
picture book publications on Australia in the 1940s. The photographs
in it are clear and concise with little Pictorialist 'atmosphere’.
From
within the ranks of the New South Wales Photographic Society
there was a schoolboy photographer in the process of transforming
his Pictorialist romanticism into a Modernist style appropriate
to the enthusiasms of The Home. Max Dupain (1911 - 1992)
exhibited a photograph Modern might at the Society’s 1928
exhibition and two years later joined Cecil Bostock’s studio
as an apprentice. It was a fortuitous choice for Bostock was
a good technician, devoted to the advance of art photography,
and proved receptive to the new ideas of the abstract beauty
of pure form which Dupain was developing(34).
By
1933 Dupain had made an image, Silos—morning in
which the ‘bold masses’ of the grain silos at Pyrmont
were outlined against the sky. It was shown to the New South
Wales Photographic Society where its degree of abstraction, emphasised
by the extreme low viewpoint, was criticised. Bostock defended
the work(35) but henceforth, although Dupain’s
photographs appeared in exhibitions with Pictorialist works,
his style had none of the atmosphere, diffused outlines and graceful
idealisation demanded by Pictorial aesthetics(36).
Precedents for Dupain s ‘unpicturesque’ subjects
and casual ‘photographic’ composition, had been set
by painters such as Modernist painter-architect, John D. Moore
(1886-1958) with whom Dupain was friendly(37).
By
1935 Dupain was making even more radical images of the industrial
landscape around Pyrmont, with low and high viewpoints used to
dramatise the forms and raking light to either bring out their
solidity or east them as geometric shapes. Where in 1932 he had
made a bromoil of a quarry with a human interest element in the
figures of manual labourers(38), now telegraph
poles and car wheels dominated a surreal environment denuded
of people and any sense of the organic(39).
The graceful asymmetry of Pictorialism was replaced by new theories
of dynamic symmetry advocated by Jay Hamblins books(40).
Pictorialists
had already treated machinery and telegraph poles as decorative
forms subordinated to the graphic effect of the whole image.
In the last year of Dupain’s work with him, Bostock had
been commissioned, with Cazneaux, to photograph the new Anzac
War Memorial in Hyde Park. The photographs published in The Book
of the Anzac Memorial in 1934(41) were
restrained, simple and direct, well suited to the Art Deco forms
of the building. Bostock included his own low-angle view of the
scaffolding for the dome in which the forms predominate but are
not autonomous.
Cazneaux
also responded to Modernism in the 1930s building on the decorative
geometric patterns of his earlier images. He gained an important
commission in 1935 to photograph the various steel-making plants
of the Broken Hill Proprietary Company for their fiftieth anniversary(42).
The resulting imagery, like the old Sydney coverage of his earliest
years, expressed the romance of industry in general, with rich
steam and light effects but with the scale and dynamism of the
works retained to suit modern taste.
Other
Pictorialists accommodated the Modernist landscape painting style
of the late 1920s seen in the Art in Australia special
landscape issue of 1927(43) and in the
work of painters like Hans Heysen, Elioth Gruner and Max Meldrum
(1875-1955) whose simplified broad shapes and outlined contours,
flat colours and clear light suited the clean interior decoration
and streamlined shapes of the new buildings of the 1930s(44). The
rugged dry landscapes of Central Australia became popular in
photography as a relief from the sylvan dells and recreational
landscapes which constituted a staple fare of earlier years.
One
of the earliest to explore the desert landscape was F. A. Joyner
who accompanied Heysen on trips to the Flinders Ranges in 1927-1928.
The experience revitalised Joyner, then in his sixties, and he
produced a series of landscape studies with flattened forms which
presented the drought-stricken country with an almost classical
impartiality(45).
John
B. Eaton (1881-1967) who was an active member of the Victorian
Pictorial societies during the 1920s, also modernised his soft-focus
landscape work, which was derived from the luminous cool tonalism
of Frederick Evans (1852-1943), a member of the Linked Ring.
Eaton’s Cattle tracks of 1934 achieved an Australian look.
His later works became extremely graphic due to the use of a
piece of sandblasted glass during the printing of his negatives
to the point where they bordered on the abstract(46).
Harold
Cazneaux became enamoured of his home state desert areas during
his trips to the Flinders Ranges in 1935 and 1937. He made some
of his boldest and most successful landscapes on these journeys,
with large shapes placed in the centre of the image as in his
most famous tree portrait, The Spirit of Endurance of
1937. It was originally titled A giant gum of the arid north,
but was retitled following the death of his only son Harold at
Tobruk in 1941. Cazneaux called it his most Australian picture(47).
Ironically,
the sunshine school of Australian Pictorialism, first sought
during World War One, was finally achieved through the impact
of modernist painting in the 1920s and 1930s. However, the Pictorialists
remained faithful to the naturalism and human interest in their
work accommodating only those stylistic aspects of contemporary
style which preserved these features. The ideology of modernism,
which had a zealous enthusiasm for mechanisation, the marvels
of cars and planes, and the monumental constructions of the new
engineering and architectural works, was viewed with scepticism
and some trepidation(48).
The
young radicals of the turn of the century who had fought for
the truth and beauty of soft-focus were middle aged in the 1930s.
Cazneaux’s and Joyner’s creative work finished with
their trips to the desert. Kauffmann in Melbourne in his sixties,
responded to the new formalism of the 1930s by producing a series
of close-up plant and floral studies which, despite their soft-focus,
relate to the vogue for still life studies in Modernist photography
in Europe and America. These were appreciated in his own lifetime
by two quite different audiences. Ambrose Pratt wrote an article
in 1933 on Kauffmann as an artist for Manuscripts, a small arts
and letters journal. Pratt predicted Kauffmann would be honoured
by future generations for his flower studies(49). One
of which was used in The Home as an advertisement for
hosiery in 1927(50).
Kauffmann
had consistently produced images which were more sophisticated
or subtle than those of his contemporaries. In later years he
became embittered at the lack of recognition of his pioneering
role and was regarded as rather old fashioned by younger photographers(51). Yet
he was the first Australian photographer to have a monograph
published. The Art of John Kauffmann (1919)(52) and
his coverage in an arts and letters magazine was a testament
denied to Cazneaux whose work remained in a nexus of Ure Smith’s
publications and the Pictorial salons.
An
awareness of a separate modern school of photography arrived
with the completion of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The New Photography
or New Objectivity as it was known, had been greatly stimulated
by photographers and film makers working during the heyday of
the Weimar Republic in Germany between 1927—1933. The Neue
Sachlich keit (new matter-of-factness) movement in the visual
arts in Germany was also influential in focussing attention on
the validity and pictorial power of commonplace subjects(53). Where
Art Deco used geometric patterns and clear outlines to create
decorative images, the New Photography used strong lighting,
odd angles and close-ups to reveal the abstract forms in mundane
objects and scenes. In doing so the subjects of the New Photography
were often monumentalised and mystified while at the same time,
expressing the transcendental-spiritual philosophies behind aspects
of Modernism.(54)
The AP-R.
received reports on the New Photography from its London correspondent,
the Reverend H. 0. Fenton, who was both bemused and fascinated
by The Modern Spirit exhibition held there in 1932. He
cited F. J. Niortimer’s observation that, ‘Once a
man photographed a room, now he takes the keyhole and makes an
enlargement of it!(55). The editors of
the A.P.-R. urged receptivity to the stimulus offered
by the New Photography ‘the modern movement may influence
the future trend of photography by extending the range of our
visions.., and provide us with much needed stimulus(56).
Exposure
to examples of modern work came directly from German magazines
such as Dos Deutsche Lichtbild and English publications
such as Modern Photography annuals which contained translated
versions of the ideologies of the new style. Max Dupain was impressed
by the writings of G. H. Saxon Mills in this publication, quoting
them later in his own publications. Photography, he said:
belongs
to the new age, its forms are mechanistic rather than naturalistic.
It is part and parcel of the terrific and thrilling panorama
opening out before us today of clean concrete buildings, steel
radio masts, and the wings of the airliner. But its beauty
is only for those who, themselves, are aware of the zeitgest—who
belong consciously and proudly to this age, and have not their
eyes fixed wistfully on the past(57).
There
was as much chauvinism in Mills characterisation of the role
of the New Photographer as the turn of the century Pictorialists’ who
claimed to have a privileged perception of the beauty in nature.
The New Photography would, he said, reveal 'the vivid and exciting
reality behind the commonplace which alone we see’(58). The
social and temporal meaning of a scene was not as important as
the formal beauty it contained.
Different
streams of modern photography were concerned less with abstract
forms than with the social and humanistic meaning of the actual
subjects encouraged by the New Photography
Other
photographers in Australia were aware of Das Deutsche Lichtbild and
of the concept of the photo-essay and documentary school of modern
pho-tography. Axel Poignant (1906—1986) who ran a portrait
studio in Perth, Western Australia, received copies of the German
magazine from his aunt in England. By 1934-1935 he was experimenting
with a photoessay on the Karri forest timber getters at Pemberton,
inspired by European magazines which had adopted the new picture
format. His break with the local Pictorialists like A. Knapp,
came when Poignant discussed the impact of his work with sharp
prints for aerial survey work in 1938. Knapp commented on ‘how
painful it must have been to have to take sharp pictures’(59).
Modern
formal styles of work began appearing in Pictorial salons in
increasing numbers from the early 1930s. They provoked comment
by the reviewers and others such as J. S. MacDonald (1878-1952),
Director of the New South Wales Art Gallery, when he opened the
New South Wales Photographic Society’s 1932 exhibition
with an attack on modern art(60). The reviews
in the press expressed reservation about the monotony of bromoils
in the show and the lack of vigour and dramatic force.
Only
a few works, BA. Musto’s Curves for example, were seen
as experiments with the new machine forms that were popular with
German and Japanese photographers(61).
The
fifth international salon of the Victorian Salon in 1934 was
reviewed by Cazneaux who noted the appearance of cold-toned glossy
prints without enthusiasm and a lack of story elements(62). As
early as 1930, in a review of the KODAK Fourth Annual International
Salon shown in Sydney, Cazneaux contrasted the gentle world
of Pictorialism with the jazzy pace of the metropolis:
What
a contrast was there — the drop to the ground floor in
the modern lift and being hustled by a modern crowd into the
modern bustle of our modern city streets, where electric trains,
motor cars, concrete and steel, colour and human beings seem
all messed up and doing jazz! ... Here are subjects waiting
to be treated. The jazz of moving shapes makes patterns on
the street whilst up above against the sunset sky is the jazz-like
serrated edge of the up and down masses of concrete and steel.
What we cannot get in romantic old-world subjects in the modern
youthful city (that is stamping out what little it has of the
old), must be turned to account in exploiting its modern possibilities(63).
He
was aware of the arguments of the anti-Modernists as were the
members of the Sydney Camera Circle. In 1932 English photography
critic F. C. Tilney (1864-1951) donated a large collection of
early Pictorialist work to the Sydney Camera Circle, for whom
he had acted as a paid critic. Tilney had published numerous
books and reviews on Pictorial photography but gave up this work
from 1926 on to devote himself to his broadsheet Art and Reason,
which attacked modern art(64).
By
1935 the old and new schools were being counterpointed in The
Home and in Art in Australia. Ure Smith included
portfolios of work by the Sydney Camera Circle and Max Dupain
in Art in Australia in June and November 1935. The Circle
members’ bucolic landscapes were a world apart from Dupain’s
nudes, light and form studies which showed the impact of J.T.
Scoby’s book on European Modernist photography by
Man Ray (1890— 1976) which Dupain had enthusiastically
reviewed for The Home in October.
Dupain’s
portfolio carried a quote from Saxon Mills’ essay of 1931
and The Home also carried a review of the latest Modern
Photography 1935-1936(65). Ure Smith continued
to support Cazneaux in his various publications but the increasing
attention given to Dupain and a new generation of modern photographers,
showed that a baton was being publicly handed from the old to
the new styles.
In
1938 the Pictorial salons were faced with a secession. For
the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of Australia’s foundation,
the photographic societies organised a huge international salon,
which they declared "The finest exhibition of modern photography
ever displayed in Australia'(66).
Cazneaux,
who was an organiser, selector and judge of the Pictorial section,
also wrote a review for the Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Art
of the Camera — its Amazing Growth’ in which he took
pride that Australian work was ‘up to date’ and ‘recognised
by all the noted salons overseas’(67).
In
a letter to the newspaper Dupain felt obliged to publicly expose
the fallacy of ‘such unanimous acclamation of ourselves
by ourselves!’ He pointed to the lack of exhibits in Australia
by modern photographers like Man Ray, Professor Moholy-Nagy and
Edouard Steichen. In the passionate tone of modern art manifestos
Dupain opposed Cazneaux’s view saying:
Great
art has always been contemporary in spirit. Today we feel the
surge along aesthetic lines, the social economic order impinging
itself on art, the repudiation of ‘truth to nature’ criterion,
and the galvanising of art and psychology. Our little collection
if it were truly rep-resentative, would reflect these elements
of modern ad-venture and research, but it is not; it is a flaccid
thing, a gentle narcotic, something to soothe our tired nerves
after a weary day at the office!(68)
Three
more letters dated 30 March were published by the paper defending
the comprehensive nature of the exhibition which had categories
for most scientific and artistic aspects of photography, including
the minority of the Modern school. One from Arthur Smith quoted
local anti-Modernist Norman Lindsay’s view that modern
art led inevitably to ‘disruption in all forms, from war,
anarchy and scepticism ... must overtake existence on earth'(69).
Cazneaux
was drawn into the debate to reassert that the exhibition was
both popular and representative of world photography. It was
sane and progressive and salons could provide scope for all schools
but also delivered a warning that:
if
a few impetuous young workers influenced by the champions of
ultra-modern thought, choose that for-mula of aesthetic . . .
exploration along abstract lines’, then danger lurked in
that ‘exploration’ is uncertain, and the ultimate
destination is unknown(70).
In
reaction to the controversy surrounding the sesquicentenary salon,
Dupain and eleven other artists and pho-tographers formed the
Contemporary Camera Groupe and held an exhibition of their work
at the David Jones Gallery in December.
Curiously
the ‘Groupe’ included
Cazneaux as well as Pictorialists William G. Buckle, George
J. Morris and Cecil Bostock who designed the catalogue
and appended the ‘e’ to the group’s name. The catalogue
contained a manifesto written by Dupain which was similar to The Linked Ring
except in
phraseology, as it expounded an alliance between photography and the other
arts, the individuality of members yet their respect for ‘our masters
who we love as well as proclaiming their progressiveness; ‘We hate
the cliche, and would drive a wedge between stagnant orthodoxy and original
thought
of the living moment(71).
A
notice for the exhibition had claimed that it was ‘prophetic
in its modernity(72) but the titles suggest
a lesser degree of difference from the Modernist works in Pictorial
salons than
the announcements indicated.
Cecil Bostock exhibited a pure abstract in his Phenomena displayed
in the window,
and several large prints on the newly fashionable cold tone and glossy
papers. George J. Morris exhibited large bromoil transfers of
his European travels
made from Leica small-format negatives. Cazneaux was represented mostly
by landscapes and a rather forced modern piece Aerial antics(73).
Dupain’s
group of exhibits were portraits and nudes in a surrealistic vein including
a work with a title from T.S. Eliot’s poetry(74).
The
artists in the exhibition were graphic designer Douglas Annand (1903-1976),
who included his designs for the booklet for the New York World Fair(75),
A. E. Dodd and Louis Witts, also graphic illustrators. Dupain had contact
with
some of the artists attending night classes at Julian Ashton’s
Art School and with John D. Moore and Rah Fizelle in these years.
The
most significant aspect of the Contemporary Camera Groupe was the
inclusion of the work of professional advertising and illustration
photographers from the younger generation, Olive Cotton, Russell
Roberts, Damien Parer
and Laurence
Le Guay. Their exhibits were only partially from any commercial jobs
as
such, but the source of their livelihood indicated the pattern of the
future and
the return of the pendulum of progressive work to the professional
quarter. Like Dupain, their careers had effectively begun in
the mid 1930s and
were allied with Modernism.
In
later life Cazneaux told Jack Cato that Pictorialism
really finished in 1939(76). In 1947
W. H. Moffitt wrote an article for the AP.-R on ‘The
Status of Pictorial Photography(77) which
Cazneaux thought the best piece ever written(78). It was a defence
of handwork
and idealisation,
however the movement it supported had rigor mortis and it was in
reality a valediction.
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footnotes | contents | search-shades
List
of illustrations used in the original publication (captions may
be abbreviated):
P.102: Harold Cazneaux, Sydney Camera Club members selecting prints.
1920s
P.104: Cecil W Bostock: The evening model, Spring 1929
P.104: Harold Cazneaux: Doris Zinkeisen, c.1929
P.105: Harold Cazneaux: Martin Place. 1925-1928
P.106: Harold Cazneaux: The bridge by Moonlight. 1932 (Book cover)
P.107: Henri Mallard: The White Ensign. 1921
P.108: Max Dupain: Industrial Landscape.1935
P.109: John Kauffmann: The Butterfly. c.1927
P.110: August Knapp: The Metal Turner, 1930s
P.112: Cecil W. Bostock: Phenomena c.1938
P.113: Harold Cazneaux: The Wheel of youth. 1929
P.114:
George J. Morris: A misty day, New York, c.1921
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