The interwar period saw some huge developments in the world of photography. Photographic pictorialism, being established in 1897, was considered the norm in Australia until 1917. It was a blend of naturalism, impressionism and the flowing style of art nouveau. The photographer became the 'artist'. Bromoil, a popular photographic process of pictorialism, allowed the photographer to manipulate the image beyond the purely mechanical reproduction of glass plate negatives, thereby producing softly focused photographs.
PHOTOGRAPHY: THE NEW MEDIUM
The slow shift from pictorialism started around 1917. During the aftermath of the First World War, there became a demand for the new, and a striving for the modern in all forms of art and architecture, and, throughout the 1920s, pictorialist and modernist photography existed side by side. Pictorial photography remained popular up until the 1940s, however, the dominance of modernist photography soon became evident. While pictorialism relied on diffuse outlines and graceful idealism to create decorative images, modernist photography utilized harsh lighting, extreme angles and close-ups to reveal the abstract forms in monotonous objects and scenes. Photographs became less manipulated and more reliant on a modern naturalism which reflected 'newness'. Consequently, the subjects of modernist photography were often awe-inspiring and perplexing while at the same time, expressing the inspiring and spiritual philosophies behind aspects of Modernism.
In 1930, a young apprentice by the name of Max Dupain, who would ultimately go on to become Australia’s leading modernist photographer, began developing modernist ideas about the dramatic use of forms in his photographic work. His embrace of simplicity, dynamic symmetry, beauty in the everyday and contrasts of light and shape reflected the 'new' principles embraced by modernist photography. Clearly, photography allowed more scope for inclusion rather than exclusion as attitudes changed. The bridging of the dominant movement from pictorialism to modernism highlights the importance of connections between the 'old' and the 'new' in Australian photography of the 20th century.
In 1930, a young apprentice by the name of Max Dupain, who would ultimately go on to become Australia’s leading modernist photographer, began developing modernist ideas about the dramatic use of forms in his photographic work. His embrace of simplicity, dynamic symmetry, beauty in the everyday and contrasts of light and shape reflected the 'new' principles embraced by modernist photography. Clearly, photography allowed more scope for inclusion rather than exclusion as attitudes changed. The bridging of the dominant movement from pictorialism to modernism highlights the importance of connections between the 'old' and the 'new' in Australian photography of the 20th century.
PHOTOGRAPHY AND BODY CULTURE
The mid 1930s was a period where the photographic nude was still an uncommon subject in Australia. However, in response to the horrors and destruction of the First World War, there was a sense of depletion in the nation, both physical and mental. This degeneration of the body through modernity and the impact of war and the Depression inspired the notion of the revitalisation of a nation through the sun and the beach. During the Depression the beach was a place that offered rejuvenation for the spirit. The ideal of the fit, healthy body thus emerged as a new movement to rebuild a physically and spiritually invigorated society. This 'body culture' movement of the interwar period was primarily illustrated by photography, as photography was the modern medium which also carried a powerful authority of truth. Photography had the ability to bring the classical conceptions of the ideal body into modern life; therefore it became a frame of reference for modern Australian artists who experimented with colour, tone, texture, shape and contrast to depict the modern body in new, surreal ways.
In the 1930s, photography was mainly dispersed throughout Australia in magazines and journals such as The Home and Art in Australia. Portfolios of work by the Sydney Camera Circle and leading modernist photographer Max Dupain were published in Art in Australia in June and November 1935. In these publications, the Sydney Camera Circle members’ rural landscapes were a world apart from Dupain’s nudes, as well as his studies on light and form.
Perhaps the most renown and iconic photograph in Australia is Max Dupain’s ‘Sunbaker’. Taken in 1937, it seems to capture a typical Australia; the muscular, well-sculpted body, the sun, the beach, the last drops of the sea sparkling like diamonds across his tanned, resting torso. The image speaks of health and masculinity, of heath, of potential – and of certain innocence. ‘Sunbaker’ is “a symbol of the body in contact with primal forces. These are elemental, regenerating forces, and the body on the beach gains sustenance from the earth, the sun and the water” (Crombie, 2004).
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| Dupain, Max (1911-1992); Sunbaker, 1937, photograph. Image courtesy National Gallery of Australia. |
Max Dupain is regarded as one of Australia’s greatest modernist photographers. His photographs of the 1930s often involved the naked human body in coastal landscapes, which shows the deep impact of ‘body culture’ on Dupain’s work. His attitude towards the body was given aesthetic inspiration through the vitalist philosophies that strengthened the health and fitness movement of the interwar period. His nude studies of the female form were a wonderful modernist exploration of form and structure, surrealism, and the play of light. These photographs portray the sculptural nature of the female nude with an Australian sense of light. Shadows are sharply defined, with romantic soft focus playing no role in these rather acute observations.
Dupain’s familiar masterpiece, ‘The Little Nude’, captures his first wife, Olive Cotton – also an influential modernist photographer during the interwar period – in a moment of intimacy and grace, while his highly stylised ‘Jean with wire mesh’ verifies the revolutionary modernity of Dupain's photographic works of the 1930s. ‘Jean’ has a fresh, aerial sense of composition with a passive, yet unmistakable sense of eroticism. According to Alan Davies, the photographic curator of the State Library of NSW, "It's not enormously erotic. But it is incredibly sensual, masterful in its use of light and shade. To photograph someone with her forehead in full sunlight and the rest of her figure cloaked in shadow is an extraordinary technical achievement. Most photographers would regard it as professional suicide. They wouldn't attempt it." The image, he says, "is an astonishing masterpiece of light and shade". Finally, Dupain’s 'Nude with pole' conveys his modernistic embrace for simplicity, dynamic symmetry and the contrasts of light and shape as he portrays the female form as two halves rather than a whole figure, in an overly simplistic composition which relies on the contrast between the light against the model’s body and the darkness of the background.
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| Dupain, Max (1911-1992); The Little Nude, 1938, photograph. Image courtesy of Max Dupain Exhibition Photography. |
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| Dupain, Max (1911-1992); Jean With Wire Mesh, 1937, photograph. Image courtesy of Max Dupain Exhibition Photography. |
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| Dupain, Max (1911-1992); Nude With Pole, 1939, photograph. Image courtesy of Max Dupain Exhibition Photography. |
PHOTOGRAPHY: THE NEW TECHNOLOGY AND MATERIALS
Simultaneous to the growth of these modern photographic disciplines and ideals, new photographic technologies and materials also appeared during the interwar period. 1931 saw the invention of ultra-high speed and stop-action photography, a technique familiar today in daily newspaper and television sports reportage. This invention spawned from Harold Edgerton’s experiments with a stroboscope which began in 1926. A stroboscope generates brief, repeating bursts of light, allowing an observer to view quickly moving objects in a series of static images, rather than a single continuous blur. By synchronizing strobe flashes with the motion being examined, then taking a series of photos through an open shutter at the rate of many flashes per second, ultra-high speed and stop-action photography became possible.
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| Dr Harold Edgerton; Backhand, c.1939. Image courtesy of National Gallery of Australia. |
In 1932, Edwin Land’s one-step process for developing and printing photographs created the revolution of Polaroid photography (also known as instant photography). The release of the Land Camera in 1947 allowed the photographer to remove a developing print after the picture had been snapped, and thus the Polaroid became a medium of the masses and their domestic spaces.
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| Edwin Land. Image courtesy of The Rowland Institute at Harvard. |
In 1937, Chester Carlson invented a process called ‘electrophotography’ while conducting experiments with photo-conductivity. He invented a method of transferring images from one piece of paper to another using static electricity. His early experiments were conducted with sulfur in his apartment kitchen. This patented copying process was later renamed ‘Xerography’, and it became one of the most well-known inventions of the 20th century.
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| The first known photocopy was the "10-22-38 Astoria" |
The early 20th Century also saw the increasing popularity of the earliest form of light meter – the extinction meter - a device that measures light to determine the proper exposure settings for a photograph. When taking a photograph, the photographer would peer through the extinction meter at the scene and see a series of increasingly darkened numbers or letters. The letter that was the faintest but still viewable was then looked up on a table so that the time/aperture combinations could be found. It was assumed that the brighter the scene, the more items would be visible. However, since the iris within a human eye adjusts automatically, the meters did not work as well as the original idea sounded.
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| Mimosa extinction meter, 1947. Image courtesy of Flickr. |
The most significant development of photographic materials during the interwar period was undoubtedly the exciting advancements in film. 1935 saw the introduction of the first commercially successful colour film – Kodachrome. This revolutionary new technology allowed amateurs to capture action photography in virtually grain-free, vibrant colour on 35mm film - a previously impossible achievement. The "iridescence" of colour was "just something that colour photographers had never dreamed of" (Stewart, 2001). Luis Marden, a photographer and former chief of the National Geographic, called the new film "a photographer's liberation, like being let out of prison" (Marden, 2001). However, today’s advances in digital photography have demoted Kodachrome to just a fraction of a percent of Kodak's total sales of still-picture films—prompting the company's decision in 2009 to stop making the iconic product.
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| A pelican flies over a stormy Gulf of Mexico in a 1937 Kodachrome photograph taken by Luis Marden, one of the color film's early champions at National Geographic magazine.Image courtesy of National Geographic. |
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| In the summer of 1937, National Geographic magazine photographer W. Robert Moore took the first Kodachrome shots for the publication while on assignment in Austria. Image courtesy of National Geographic. |
CONCLUSION
The progression of modernist photography and the technological advancements that pursued this unpredictable medium during the interwar period revealed a great deal about Australian culture, particularly about the regeneration of mind and body. Visualizing how this ‘body culture’ movement could have captured the imagination of the Australian public with as much force as it did without the support of this exciting medium is almost impossible, and the enduring fascination of Max Dupain’s work is evidence of the significant impact photography had in capturing the seductiveness of the ‘body culture’ during the interwar period.
Source 1: Secondary Source Material: Online Research
<http://www.photocopiers.net.au/copierchoice_resources/history_of_the_photocopier.html>
ACT Museums and Galleries 2008, Collection Series: Photography, Canberra Museum and Gallery, viewed 08 October 2010, <http://www.museumsandgalleries.act.gov.au/cmag/OliveCotton.html>
Art Gallery NSW 2007, Collection: Laurence Le Guay, viewed 08 October 2010, <http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/search/?artist_id=le-guay-laurence>
Art Gallery NSW 2007, Collection: Laurence Le Guay: The Progenitors, viewed 08 October 2010, <http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/work/169-1979+the-progenitors>
Glad, H 2010, Pictorialism to Modernism: Introduction, Joseph Lebovic Gallery, viewed 08 October 2010 <http://www.joseflebovicgallery.com/Catalogue/Archive/Cat-105-2003/Pages/pg_01.html>
This website provides detailed information about the transition from pictorialist photography to modernist photography in Australia, as well as information about Australian photographers from the 20th century and a list of some of their photographs, which include descriptions, dimensions, materials, titles and creation dates of each photograph. Since I will be discussing the transition from pictorialist photography to modernist photography in Australia in my article, I believe this website will provide me with a valuable source of information and sourced images.
Max Dupain Exhibition Photography 2005, JW Photography, viewed 3 October 2010, <http://www.maxdupain.com.au>
I found this website very useful as it contains many famous photographs by modernist photographer Max Dupain. Upon researching this photographer I became a fan of his work and his concepts, so I am going to discuss Dupain’s influence on photography in Australian culture during the interwar period in my article. Therefore, this website will be very beneficial as it will provide me with background information on the artist, as well as sourced images of his work which I can use in my article to support my ideas.
Max Dupain: Female Forms 2006, Sydney Morning Herald, viewed 29 October 2010, <http://www.smh.com.au/news/arts-reviews/max-dupain-female-forms/2006/03/22/1142703406697.html>
MDAA Photo Archives 2006, Max Dupain & Associates, viewed 08 October 2010, <http://www.mdaa.com.au/Entry/tabid/2105/language/en-US/Default.aspx>
This website contains a gallery of images arranged by subject and dates, which could be useful when selecting images to appear in my article. It also has detailed biographical information about many influential modernist photographers, such as Max Dupain and Olive Cotton, which I believe will be beneficial when discussing these photographers and their influence on modernist Australian photography in my article.
Portrait of a lady 2003, Sydney Morning Herald, viewed 29 October 2010, <http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/11/1057783349284.html>
Source 2: Secondary Source Material: Swinburne Library Catalogue
Stephen, A McNamara, A & Goad, P 2008, ‘Introduction’ in A Stephen, A McNamara & P Goad 2008, Modern Times: The untold story of Modernism in Australia, Miegunyah Press, Carlton, pp. xviii-xxxiii.
Wilk, C 2006, ‘What was Modernism?’, in C Wilk 2006, Modernism : Designing a New World : 1914-1939, V&A Publications, London, pp. 10-21.
This article is useful as it discusses modernism in the design world and how it was influenced by the First World War. The book states that Modernism “did not exist in a fully developed form until well after the First World War,” (Wilk, 2006) and that “the traumas of the war were crucial for inciting modernism’s subsequent utopianism” (Wilk 2006). These are crucial pieces of information that I will be sure to include in my writings. The article then goes on to discuss the modernity and its relationship to Modernism, which will also be useful when writing my article.
Books:
Stephen, A McNamara, A & Goad, P 2008, Modern Times: The untold story of Modernism in Australia, Miegunyah Press, Carlton.
Wilk, C 2006, Modernism : Designing a New World : 1914-1939, V&A Publications, London.
Source 3: Primary Source Material: The Special Design Research Collection
Books:
Ferebee, A 1970, A History of Design From The Victorian Era to the Present: A survey in the Modern style in architecture, interior design, industrial design, graphic design and photography, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York.
It was hard to find a primary source that focussed on my chosen area of photography. This book, however, discusses modern photography, including information about photography as a “new vision”, and photo-journalism. It also contains information about modern graphic design, including the abstract poster, and since I plan to briefly talk about poster design in my article I believe this will be useful. The book also talks about other things that will assist in my writings, such as modernism, modern art, the modern art movement in Australia, and an excerpt from Max Dupain’s published book about Man Ray and his “place in Modern Photography”.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Web articles/websites:
A brief history of the photocopier industry 2010, Copier Choice, viewed 3 October 2010,<http://www.photocopiers.net.au/copierchoice_resources/history_of_the_photocopier.html>
ACT Museums and Galleries 2008, Collection Series: Photography, Canberra Museum and Gallery, viewed 08 October 2010, <http://www.museumsandgalleries.act.gov.au/cmag/OliveCotton.html>
Art Gallery NSW 2007, Collection: Laurence Le Guay, viewed 08 October 2010, <http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/search/?artist_id=le-guay-laurence>
Art Gallery NSW 2007, Collection: Laurence Le Guay: The Progenitors, viewed 08 October 2010, <http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/work/169-1979+the-progenitors>
Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts 2010, Australia’s Culture Portal, viewed 3 October 2010, <http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au>
Edwin Land: Polaroid photography – instant photography 2010, About, viewed 25 October 2010, <http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blpolaroid.htm>Glad, H 2010, Pictorialism to Modernism: Introduction, Joseph Lebovic Gallery, viewed 08 October 2010 <http://www.joseflebovicgallery.com/Catalogue/Archive/Cat-105-2003/Pages/pg_01.html>
This website provides detailed information about the transition from pictorialist photography to modernist photography in Australia, as well as information about Australian photographers from the 20th century and a list of some of their photographs, which include descriptions, dimensions, materials, titles and creation dates of each photograph. Since I will be discussing the transition from pictorialist photography to modernist photography in Australia in my article, I believe this website will provide me with a valuable source of information and sourced images.
Heide Museum of Modern Art 2007, Savage Luxury: Modernist Design in Melbourne 1930-1939, Arts Victoria, viewed 3 October 2010, <http://www.heide.com.au/exhibitions/savage_luxury?exhib=18>
In A Flash 1998, National Gallery of Australia, viewed 25 October 2010, <http://nga.gov.au/exhibitions/Edgerton/index.htm>
Inventor of the Week Archive: Harold Edgerton 1999, Lemelson-MIT Project, viewed 25 October 2010, <http://nga.gov.au/exhibitions/Edgerton/index.htm>
KODACHROME: First Great Color Film Remembered in Photos 2009, National Geographic, viewed 29 October 2010, < http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/photogalleries/kodachrome-color-film-discontinued/>
Looking at Dupain in a fresh light 2004, Sydney Morning Herald, viewed 3 October 2010, < http://www.smh.com.au/news/Arts/Looking-at-Dupain-in-a-fresh-light/2004/12/12/1102786951812.html>Max Dupain Exhibition Photography 2005, JW Photography, viewed 3 October 2010, <http://www.maxdupain.com.au>
I found this website very useful as it contains many famous photographs by modernist photographer Max Dupain. Upon researching this photographer I became a fan of his work and his concepts, so I am going to discuss Dupain’s influence on photography in Australian culture during the interwar period in my article. Therefore, this website will be very beneficial as it will provide me with background information on the artist, as well as sourced images of his work which I can use in my article to support my ideas.
Max Dupain: Female Forms 2006, Sydney Morning Herald, viewed 29 October 2010, <http://www.smh.com.au/news/arts-reviews/max-dupain-female-forms/2006/03/22/1142703406697.html>
MDAA Photo Archives 2006, Max Dupain & Associates, viewed 08 October 2010, <http://www.mdaa.com.au/Entry/tabid/2105/language/en-US/Default.aspx>
This website contains a gallery of images arranged by subject and dates, which could be useful when selecting images to appear in my article. It also has detailed biographical information about many influential modernist photographers, such as Max Dupain and Olive Cotton, which I believe will be beneficial when discussing these photographers and their influence on modernist Australian photography in my article.
Portrait of a lady 2003, Sydney Morning Herald, viewed 29 October 2010, <http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/11/1057783349284.html>
Powerhouse Museum 2009, Modern times: The untold story of Modernism in Australia, State Library of Queensland, viewed 3 October 2010, <http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/exhibitions/modern_times.php>
Shades of Light: Pictorialists and Modernists 1988, Photoweb viewed 29 October 2010, <http://www.photo-web.com.au/ShadesofLight/11-pictorial.htm>Source 2: Secondary Source Material: Swinburne Library Catalogue
Articles/Book chapters:
Bogle, M 1998, ‘Selling modernity’ in M Bogle 1998, Design in Australia 1880-1970, Craftsman House, North Ryde NSW, pp. 68-80
Crombie, I 2004, ‘The whiter Your Bread the sooner You’re Dead’ in I Crombie 2004, Body Culture: Max Dupain, Photography and Australian Culture 1919-1939, National Gallery of Victoria, Musgrave, pp. 129-140.
Crombie, I 2004, ‘The whiter Your Bread the sooner You’re Dead’ in I Crombie 2004, Body Culture: Max Dupain, Photography and Australian Culture 1919-1939, National Gallery of Victoria, Musgrave, pp. 129-140.
Menz, C 2003, ‘‘A Growing Enthusiasm for Modernity’: Art Deco in Australia’ in C Benton, T Benton & G Wood 2003, Art Deco 1910-1939,V&A Publications, London, pp. 407-417.
Stephen, A McNamara, A & Goad, P 2008, ‘Introduction’ in A Stephen, A McNamara & P Goad 2008, Modern Times: The untold story of Modernism in Australia, Miegunyah Press, Carlton, pp. xviii-xxxiii.
This article is useful as it discusses modernism in the design world and how it was influenced by the First World War. The book states that Modernism “did not exist in a fully developed form until well after the First World War,” (Wilk, 2006) and that “the traumas of the war were crucial for inciting modernism’s subsequent utopianism” (Wilk 2006). These are crucial pieces of information that I will be sure to include in my writings. The article then goes on to discuss the modernity and its relationship to Modernism, which will also be useful when writing my article.
Books:
Benton, T & Wood, G 2003, Art Deco 1910-1939, V&A Publications, London.
Crombie, I 2004, Body Culture: Max Dupain, Photography and Australian Culture 1919-1939, National Gallery of Victoria, Musgrave.
This book was especially useful as it focussed purely on photography in Australia during the interwar period. As it states in the book, photography is “generally ignored by the standard histories of Australian Modernism” (Crombie, 2004), so finding books and articles related to modernist photography in Australia was particularly difficult. However, this book provided me with a lot of relevant information in relation to photography being the new way to express modernism, as well as information about renowned Australian modernist photographer Max Dupain, and how he helped “transform photographic practice in Australia” (Crombie, 2004).Goad, P, McNamara, A & Stephan, A 2006, Modernism & Australia: Documents on Art, Design and Architecture 1917-1967, Melbourne University Publishing, Carlton
Stephen, A McNamara, A & Goad, P 2008, Modern Times: The untold story of Modernism in Australia, Miegunyah Press, Carlton.
Wilk, C 2006, Modernism : Designing a New World : 1914-1939, V&A Publications, London.
Books:
Ferebee, A 1970, A History of Design From The Victorian Era to the Present: A survey in the Modern style in architecture, interior design, industrial design, graphic design and photography, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York.
It was hard to find a primary source that focussed on my chosen area of photography. This book, however, discusses modern photography, including information about photography as a “new vision”, and photo-journalism. It also contains information about modern graphic design, including the abstract poster, and since I plan to briefly talk about poster design in my article I believe this will be useful. The book also talks about other things that will assist in my writings, such as modernism, modern art, the modern art movement in Australia, and an excerpt from Max Dupain’s published book about Man Ray and his “place in Modern Photography”.
