Category Archives: essays

Oceania: From Melbourne to Papeete

Revisiting  a 2019 entry to an exhibition catalogue

This piece was a difficult piece to write. The requirement was to survey 19th century photography across the Pacific in a few hundred words. Many hours were spent reducing the entry and making decisions on what to leave out — reluctantly!   If I ever find the time I may revisit this and make it a much longer piece with all the extras inserted back in. Wishful thinking maybe? Here’s the original piece.

George Silk

The iconic 1942 New Guinea photograph

I have uploaded a piece on the iconic George Silk 1942 photograph of the Papuan carrier Raphael Oimbari assisting Private George Whittington. I have also included research “After The Photograph” using a selection of memorial sculptures that have been influenced by the Silk photograph.   Click here for the online essays.

Rod McNicol, The Roses 2024

On Our Collections

When we moved, we dispersed some of our collections and said to ourselves that we should not buy any more. Then we saw this wonderful new work by Rod McNicol.

A previous notice for this was posted on Facebook — but their algorithm removed it.  We have a theory.   Click here for the original piece on our website

Hélène Hoppenot

Following my research, collection acquisitions and exhibition on Southeast Asian photography while at the National Gallery of Australia, in 2014 I wrote a piece about Hélène Hoppenot and 1930s women modernist photographers in Southeast Asia. Till now this essay has been unpublished. It is now online — click here — more or less unchanged from the 2014 version with a few notes and links added.

 

Re-constructed Vision

Contemporary work with photography 25th July-23rd August, 1981

Over the recent years I have been searching through my archives for articles and essays that we have since published on our web-site. I had overlooked one exhibition. That was the 1981 Project Gallery exhibition Re-constructed Vision: Contemporary work with photography at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

It is now uploaded to our web site.

camera chic

East West Chic

In 2017  The Asia Art Society of Australia (TAASA) hosted a seminar of East West Chic.
I presented a talk on Camera Chic based on a collection we had put together – with fun pictures from  Asian studio portraiture. The collection highlighted the fusion of East and West evident in dress, accessories, and studio backdrops. Click here for more

Make sure you see the link to the powerpoint slides with loads of photographs to enjoy.

revisiting Photo Files 1999

The 1999 reader contains 33 essays selected by Blair French, who was then program manager for  the Australian Centre for Photography.

The texts had been previously published in the Centre of Photography’s journal — Photofile — that had been published since 1983.  I wrote the preface to this publication. There’s a table of contents below my online essay along with links to information about photofile and the ACP.     Click here for my essay.

cover image: Tracey Moffatt, Up In The Sky #3 1997 (detail)

Parting with Your Art ~ November 2021

An update on parting with my archives

Updated November 2021 

Have uploaded more to Parting with Your Artclick here.

This new page is an update on my most recent experiences on parting with my own archive as well as some thoughts that may be useful to others dealing with these downsizing matters

For the full list of pages so far: Click here

Curators and Photography

Have uploaded to our photo-web site a special section on the first photography curators — Australian that is.   We have listed four: Jennie Boddington, Ian North, Gael Newton (me!), and Alan Davies. The listings for Jennie and myself include 1983 interviews by the Australian Centre of Photography. These are very long!  (you have been warned)

Click here for the link.

If you know of any other useful online material on these people, please make contact.

Spot On

the art of film stills photography, 1906–2001

I was approached by Penny Grist of the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra to advise on the 2017 exhibition — Starstruck. I then had the great experience of working with the co-curators Penny from the Portrait Gallery and Jenny Coombes of National Film and Sound Archive. This was a fun collaborative research experience — with my essay published in their book for the exhibition. Click here for the essay now online.

Parting with Your Art ~ June 2021

Large Collections and Managing Expectations

Updated June 2021  Have uploaded more to Parting with Your Artclick here.

This page is about managing expectations, large collections, institutional collection policies, points for collectors approaching art museums and archives, recommended first steps — and more..

For the full list of pages so far: Click here

Walter Woodbury

Entrepreneur, Inventor: Woodbury in Indonesia

I have uploaded a small essay I wrote in 2014 about Walter Woodbury in Indonesia. This essay was linked to the exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia — Garden of the East: photography in Indonesia 1850s-1940s. Click here for my essay online.

There’s also another small essay online that relates to a photograph — the one above — titled Serimpies, or dancing girls of the Sultano c.1858 . Click here for that essay.

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For the list of my essays (being updated) click here

 

George Silk

George Silk, Photojournalist

I have several essays online relating to George Silk the photojournalist. Born in Levin, New Zealand in 1916, Silk served as a photojournalist for Life Magazine for 30 years.

He is well known as a war photographer, that part of his career began in 1939 serving for the Australian government in the Middle East, North Africa and Greece.

There are many other aspects of his achievements covered in my essays. Most of my research related to the exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia in 2000.

Here are the links to my essays:

Going to Extremes: George Silk, Photojournalist from the NGA exhibition catalogue

Going to extremes: George Silk photographer   essay in Art & Australia

George Silk,Fawn and rainbow trout, tributary of the Madison River, Montana

 

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For the list of my essays (being updated) click here

 

 

 

Tracey Moffatt

Online essays about Tracey Moffatt

I have several essays online about Tracey Moffatt and her photography. There’s also a link to an online version of the 1995 publication Fever Pitch with essays by Tracey and myself.

Tracey Moffatt: Invocations (2001)
Published in the exhibition catalogue — Australian National University Gallery 2001

Tracey Moffatt: The memory theatre of Tracey Moffatt
An exhibition held at the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, 2 February — 9 April 2000

Tracey Moffatt: See the woman with the red dress on … and on … and on
Essay in Art and Asia Pacific 1994

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Online: 1995 Fever Pitch, Tracey Moffatt & Gael Newton

Published online the now out of print publication (1995) with key essay by Gael Newton on Tracey Moffatt’s work along with two essays by Tracey Moffatt.

Click here of the link.

Fever Pitch was originally published in 1995 by Piper Press, Annadale (Sydney).

For more of Gael Newton’s papers — click here.

 

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For the list of my essays (being updated) click here

Australian Feminist Photography

Indecent Exposures:
Twenty Years of Australian Feminist Photography

My 1994 review of Indecent Exposures: Twenty Years of Australian Feminist Photography by Catriona Moore, Allen & Unwin in association with the Power Institute of Fine Art, Sydney  — click here

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For the list of my essays (being updated) click here

Curatorland

Writing in the Rain, FX Harsono - Still from colour video 2011  Collection National Gallery of Australia

Following my leaving the National Gallery in September 2014, I was asked by the editor of the Journal of the Asian Arts Society Australia to write about my last decade at the gallery — the decade that saw the establishment of a survey collection of Asia-Pacific photography spanning from South Asia to the west coast of the Americas.

The new collection was largely based around major collections acquired from several major private collections of Asia-Pacific photography including one of some 5000 colonial-era Indonesian photographs.

Here’s that story — click here

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For the list of my other essays (being updated) click here

 

Australian Photography since the 1970s

Michael Riley’s Cloud (2000)

Generations: Australian Photography since the 1970s

This essay was originally published in the catalogue Photographica Australis
for the 2002 exhibition by the Australian Centre of Photography
Curated by Alasdair Foster. Click here

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For the list of my essays (being updated) click here

National Gallery Singapore

CHARTING THOUGHTS: ESSAYS ON ART IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

A new research book has been published by the National Gallery of Singapore. It contains essays on Southeast Asian art by 25 scholars.

I was given the honour by the NGS of being one the contributing scholars.

The book is available from the NGS shop and through their website — click here.

Continue reading National Gallery Singapore