Last week we travelled across Melbourne to the Bayside Art Gallery in Brighton to see the National Gallery of Australia’s travelling exhibition Max Dupain and Ansel Adams: In search of perfection. The exhibition opened 20th June and is open till 30 August 2026.
Australian photographer
We have been updating our web site and also adding in a few more photographers.
In this case, a new page for Sandy Edwards — click here
We have updated our photoweb page on someone we miss, Ingeborg Tyssen.
Wonderful photography by a beautiful person. click here
We have updated our photoweb pages on Shapoor N. Bhedwar, a pioneering pictorialist photographer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. click here
We have updated our web pages for three photographers and their photobooks.
We have uploaded information and links to resources to our web site on Pegg Clarke.
Occasionally the research for an essay heads off into an interesting and unexpected direction and sometimes this trajectory leads to loads of fun stuff.
Yesterday, Thursday 26th March, at Douglas Stewart Fine Books (Armadale, Melbourne)
I had the honour of launching the delux edition of Mervyn Bishop’s biography by Tim Dobbyn.
Continue reading Black, White + Colour: a biography of Mervyn Bishop
Not to be missed… Women Photographers 1900–1975: A Legacy of Light at the National Gallery of Victoria until 3 May 2026.
Greetings everyone — thriving and striving — stay happy — we can do this!
Richard Daintree was a pioneering Australian geologist and photographer. He was the first Government geologist for North Queensland discovering gold fields and coal seams for future exploitation. Daintree went on to be Agent-General for Queensland in England and oversaw significant exhibitions of his photographs. We have updated our entries on Daintree on our website – click here
Thirty one years ago I included comments about Tracey Moffatt’s 1994 series Beauty within an essay I wrote for Fever Pitch, the 1995 monograph on Tracey’s artworks. In 2024 as a cultural gift valuer I had the opportunity to revisit the Beauty series.
I have uploaded an essay on Max Dupain’s Shattered Intimacy 1936. I had been intending to write this essay for many years. Let’s be honest — decades!
One more woman photographer profile has been added to our web site. This time Dorothy Izard. Along with Ruth Hollick, a member of the artistic community of Melbourne in the early 20th century. Click here for the link
We have uploaded pages to celebrate the photography of Ruth Hollick, a successful professional photographer in Melbourne during the 1920s and 1930s.
I have uploaded a research essay triggered by seeing a photograph in an album I was assessing for auction. That was nine years ago. My interest in the image stayed with me and recently have I brought pieces of information together to identify the background to the photo in question.
A pre-christmas meander
It was a few days before Christmas when we went for a mid morning breakfast and then for a wonder along one of our favourite streets in Melbourne, Rathdowne Street in North Carlton.
I have uploaded a piece about photographers’ archives using the example of the fantastic work by Manuela Furci who was the Director for Rennie Ellis’ Archive. Click here.
Last Sunday 26th October 2025, friends and family gathered in his ‘loft’ studio to say goodbye to Rod McNicol; I have uploaded my words (expanded and edited) — click here
We now live in Melbourne and have driven over the Hoddle Bridge many times travelling to the southern suburbs or on returning from a visit. The view above is taken from the southern side — now Punt Road. I have uploaded a short essay on this Jack Cato early 1940s photograph that is another from our collection. Click here for the essay.
On Thursday 18th September 2025, we visited Rod McNicol in his wonderful loft studio in Fitzroy. His studio was a place to behold.
I have uploaded an essay on a wonderful Polixeni Papapetrou photograph that only recently arrived into our collection and now hangs where we see it every morning while having our tea/ coffee. click here for the essay
We had a the pleasure recently of advising on a collection that included one of Australia’s photo-icons. Click here for my essay on this image and the background to the photo — by Axel Poignant.
I have researched and uploaded a piece about one of Axel Poignant’s favourite photographs, Mount Warning 1953. This led me into research about ring-barked trees and how artists have portrayed the dramatic change to the Australian landscapes — that may be the subject of another piece one day soon.
Meanwhile here’s the piece on this photograph — that is in our collection.
I have added a new page on the experience of lodging some archived copies of letters and the issue of dealing with research cards. Click here for that post
or here for the main page for Parting with your Art.
A Saturday meander through streets in a southern quarter of Collingwood. As always, ensure you eat first and have a good coffee. A visit to Falco Bakery on Langridge St; good coffee, pastries and a loaf of bread for later. Life is good!
Not too long ago I was handed a letter written by John Kauffmann (Australian photographer 1864–1942). This personal correspondence offered a different insight into the personality of this significant Australian photographer. I wrote a small piece on this thought and have added it to our special web John Kauffman page. Click here.
We have uploaded a 2025 online version of the 2014 catalogue for Garden of the East.
Uploaded pages on John Thomson (born 14 June 1837–died 29 September 1921).
This includes a slightly revised essay I wrote for an Peranakan Museum Singapore exhibition and publication in 2028/2019. My emphasis was on John Thomson’s experiences in Singapore and how this shaped his later photography career. Click here
I have uploaded a set of pages honouring Leo Haks, a collector and researcher of Indonesian photography. It was his collection that the National Gallery of Australia purchased as the basis for new collections and subsequently the exhibition: Garden of the East. Click here for the link to the Leo Haks pages.
We had a sneak preview yesterday of the superbly curated and designed photography exhibition at Heide (Melbourne) of a large selection of photographs by Man Ray and Max Dupain.
The exhibition staged by the Centre for Contemporary Photography (Melbourne) at the RMIT Gallery was a pleasure to visit and it was great to see so many people there on a quiet Saturday afternoon.
I have uploaded a 2025 online presentation of the catalogue for the 2008 exhibition, Pacific Paradise, at the National Gallery of Australia. It was fun to revisit these images and to think on those times spent bringing these collections together. Click here.
I have revised and added to an essay that was previously published in 2022 on Indonesian photography. In revisiting this work I was reminded of Leo Haks, the wonderful collector who we now miss and who was so much at the centre of how this collection came together. I hope to honour him soon with an essay and special online page or two.
My essay on Indonesian photography is online — click here.
Today we ventured out into the rain (it did stop for most of the walk) and enjoyed the views, birds and sounds of the water along several kilometres of the nearby section of the Darebin Creek Tail.
I have written and uploaded a brief essay on an aspect of Jack Cato’s character portraits. This has been added to the special pages on Cato we have online (link below).
This task reminded me that there are other aspects of Cato’s photography that I have talked about and maybe need to also put down into another short essay or two.
Here’s a link to the ‘characters’ piece — click here
and also the link to our Jack Cato set of online resources.
I have uploaded a piece about a painting I bought in 2024. It is a self portrait c1941 by Dorothy Bradford 1920 — 2016. Click here for my piece on this artist.
I have uploaded a piece, written from our new home in Melbourne in May 2025, about life on the beach in Sydney 1964. click here
I have revisited, revised and uploaded a piece I wrote about Max Dupain in 1993.
Click here for that essay.
Hanging on our wall are two photographs taken by Wesley Stacey at The Hermitage — located north east of Melbourne. This was J.W. Lindt’s property with a guesthouse and extensive gardens. I have uploaded a piece about these two works. Click here.
With the new interest in 1970s Australian photography, I remembered this exhibition that went to San Diego in 1995. Click here for my piece on this.
I have written a piece online to introduce Graham Howe’s new book, EPOCH, that features Graham Howe’s photography from his Prahran College years 1970–1971. Click here for the review.
IWD 2025 — searching for peace. The image above by Daisy Wu. In these troubles times, we need to be positive and seek peace and harmony. Caption for the photograph: All quiet on the western front, 1955. Click here for more
Last Saturday (1st March 2024) the Museum of Australian Photography staged a very crowded (that is well attended) exhibition opening of the photography of students of Prahran College (in Melbourne) with works dating from 1968–1981.
Continue reading Exhibition of photography from Prahran College
I have uploaded to our web site a piece on Carol Eyerman, a woman photographer who may have been overlooked in our photo histories despite her significant body of work with LIFE and others. Click here.
Always looking for reasons to travel around Melbourne, we spotted a closing down sale at a hat shop on Gertrude Street Fitzroy. This being just down the street from Gabriel Cafe, 187 Gertrude St, Fitzroy VIC. Off we went!
I have uploaded a piece about one of my most cherished photographs, Ruth Bernhard’s 1946 Dead Sparrow — click here
This afternoon (Saturday 7 Dec) I had the pleasure of launching at the Museum of Australian Photography Stephen Zagala’s beautiful photography book — Imaging A Real Australia — about Australian documentary photography 1950 — 1980.
We have updated the information on our website on Carol Jerrems. Loads of links.
Being in Melbourne has brought about a few pleasant surprises. Who would have thought that we would be researching early 20th century Australia women painters — who were not photographers.
I have uploaded a copy of a review I did in 2021 for the Theatre Heritage website on the 2019 book: The Falk Studios: The Theatrical Portrait Photography of H. Walter Barnett.
Click here for that article.
There are some beautiful places to visit and Victoria’s State Library is definitely one of them. Continue reading Research in the State Library of Victoria
On a very typical Melbourne day of varying weather, we took ourselves for a slightly early birthday lunch at the Boathouse Restaurant in Fairfield — on the Yarra Bend.
Since moving to Melbourne Paul and I have visited exhibitions of photography and other media. The list includes:
We had a fun day today doing some research. We headed across Melbourne to Monash University Clayton Campus to view a document for a colleague. This is what we like doing now that we are in Melbourne — doing research favours for colleagues.
A much loved work by Elaine Campaner (1969–2020) that has just taken pride of place on our walls in our new home in Melbourne. More on this work — click here.
A wonderful photograph by New York photographer, John Albok (1894–1982)
Another cherished photograph that sits on our walls in our Melbourne home.
More on this photograph — click here.
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.
Have revisited a previous article looking at the aesthetic connections to other mediums and how image makers respond to their era. I may follow up with some thoughts on how this applies in contemporary practice — today. Click here for my 1990s piece.
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.
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
A much loved work by Elaine Campaner (1969–2020) that has just taken pride of place on our walls in our new home in Melbourne. More on this work — click here.
Photography collections can be fun! I love good ‘table top’ works and we have a number in our collection. This is one — and I have written a small piece about it — click here
Have uploaded information about this early 20th century woman photographer
with links to a special photo-web presentation/translation on a 1983 book originally published in Dutch. Have also included links to research on Thilly.
Click here.
I have uploaded a piece about our visit to see the Anzac Days, the Colin Abbott exhibition at Magnet Galleries in Docklands, Melbourne.
Click here for the piece on our web site.
An update on the previous article: Canberra colleagues have identified that the girl in the centre of the photograph is holding a Kodak Brownie Starlet — ‘Made in Australia’.
Now if only we knew who she was and does she have a photo of Robert McFarlane taking her photograph!
I have uploaded a short piece about a Robert McFarlane photograph in our collection, Crowd lining the street on Anzac Day at Martin Place, Sydney, 1964.
Click here for the piece on our web site
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.
Merry Christmas from Melbourne, our new home city.
The sale of our Canberra home has happened!
Following our decision to move to Melbourne, we have packed up and cleaned out — and now have our home up for auction — this Saturday 4th November.
Click here for more on this.
We have been extra busy! A couple of months ago the decision was made to move to Melbourne this year. Maybe this was far too optimistic — but we are going for it!
The current national and international attention on women artists prompted me to plumb my archive where I found this 1994 commentary on the status of women in photography.
In a previous post I talked ‘gender, journeys and genres (1994).
Another find was The Movement of Women 1996.
Enjoying a morning cuppa in a quiet place in our garden — wearing suffragette colours to celebrate International Women’s Day and the legion of awesome women photographers past and present I have encountered in my curatorial career.
The theme this year is #EmbraceEquity. There are so many gains but still so stubborn a gap in equity, is it time for militancy???
Here’s to all of you — enjoy the day wherever you are…
Wesley Stacey died Bega Hospital 9 February 2023. My first meeting with photographer Wesley Stacey was at his Annandale home in Sydney 1974. He was already well known and recognised as one of the most tuned in figures of the new art photography scene.
Have uploaded a few stories and comments on recycling — sort of connected with my blog stories on Parting With Your Art. Click here for the latest.
I have uploaded a page about the Women:s Art Register and their very handy publication Leaving Your Legacy: A Guide for Australian Artists.
The guide is a comprehensive starting point — and the organisation is definitely worth supporting. Click here.
I have unearthed an essay from 1976 which was a commentary about photo-history books available at the time.
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.
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.
Have uploaded some comments (not legal advice) about the complex topic of copyright and Australian photography — click here
I have uploaded some comments on Peter Adams’ 2021 book
A Few of The Legends — click here
A new upload to my blog about Parting With Your Art.
This time about a friend’s experience of parting with her library plus a tale from me about all those plastic folders. Click here.
Comments and observations on the work of the photographer,
Dorothy Warner of Adelaide 1890 — 1969 — click here
Comments and observations on a CVD of a nanny and two children — click here
Comments and observations on a striking portrait by the E.B. Mowll Studio — click here
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)
Have uploaded a page about my collection of photographer’s greeting cards that has been placed with the AGNSW Library — click here
Updated November 2021
Have uploaded more to Parting with Your Art — click 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
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)
If you know of any other useful online material on these people, please make contact.
In searching out my archive of essays, I came upon a draft of one about a technology tool that served me well… The Typewriter. Now updated — Click here.
This essay was originally published in the 2008 catalogue for the Vancouver Art Gallery exhibition — click here.
For people interested in Australian CDVs, it is highly recommended that you get hold of the book that accompanied the 2018–1019 exhibition. Click here for a sample of the book
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.
The wonders of looking through your own archive. I realised I had not uploaded an essay from 2006 on Michael Riley. Have now — so here’s the link — click here.
Updated June 2021 Have uploaded more to Parting with Your Art — click 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
Contributed an essay for Melita Dahl’s June 2021 exhibition at PhotoAcccess in Canberra. The exhibition is open until 10 July 2021.
As I said in a previous post — I have been uploading my writings to my essay pages.
There is now an updated portal page for John Kauffmann — click here; that includes a link to my 1996 essay for the exhibition John Kauffmann Art Photographer