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Photographs we have collected and still own and some now in new homes elsewhere
Mount Warning, Axel Poignant, 1953
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| Ring-barked forest, Mount Warning, New South Wales, 19531 |
After service in Australia during World War II photojournalist and cinematographer, Axel Poignant worked for the Commonwealth Film Unit from 1947 to 1952 and in 1949 published a children’s book Bush Animals of Australia expressing his deep interest in the environment. He worked on a children’s film on kangaroos titled Down in the Forest for the Department of the Interior Films division which would be awarded a prize at the Venice Biennale in 1954.
Poignant’s major personal work in these years was a project recording Aboriginal communities along the Liverpool River in Arnhem Land undertaken over six weeks in late 1952. A government indigenous mission was to be established that Poignant believed would forever alter traditional ways of life. The Northern Territory work would become Poignant’s renowned legacy. He brought all his skills developed since the mid 1930s as a photojournalist, filmmaker and photobook author to the task.
It is not known what project took Poignant and partner anthropologist Roslyn Izatt, into the semi tropical hinterland of northern rivers of New South Wales as well as to Wilcannia in 1953. Little of Poignant’s still photography from that year has been published although ‘Swagman, on the road to Wilcannia’ taken near Cobar in 1953 has become very well known.2
This image of Mt Warning seen across successive ring-barked valleys on the New South Wales side of Mount Warning (most likely from the Tweed River) was one of Poignant’s personal favourites. The striking mountain peak takes centre stage and the thick clouds with sun breaking through are almost biblical. A search online shows very few Australian artists past or present have chosen to depict ring-barked terrain and even pro-development agencies have been shy of too confronting an image in posters and postcards.
Mt Warning was first exhibited in the Six Photographers group photography exhibition at David Jones Gallery Sydney, in May 1955 under the title ‘Destruction’ and first published in an article 'Literary Australia no 3: Steele Rudd', in the Sydney Morning Herald on 7 May. For the 1982 retrospective at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Axel provided the following caption:
Mount Warning was named by Captain Cook, who could see it clearly as he sailed up the coast3. On this occasion (of the photograph) the strangely lit cloud above the mountain seemed to signal the danger of the ring-barked forest below. For a few years the land is good for grazing, but the dead trees sour the soil and erosion begins.
The picture takes its place in the tradition of the picturesque view with a melancholy twist which has been a feature of Australian art and literature. It takes a moment to take in that the legion of slim, straight and tall poles are ‘tree-skeletons’ not bare ghost gums. The trunks would have had branches removed and the bark has weathered away leaving white trunks. It is a bit of a shock that the trees are still standing in the 1950s. The process was meant to create open up grassland for grazing, no crops have been put in. The image is a recognition of what settlement of virgin forest involves.
In the Mount Warning image Axel Poignant expressed an environmental concern others before him had raised about the ecological impact of ring barking. The irony of the title was a part of the story of the picture. He would have had some exposure to indigenous ritual tree marking and been aware of the cost of clearance to native flora and fauna. Dorothea Mackellar’s poem My Country published from c.1911 went against the tide in finding beauty in moon-lit ring barked trunks but others had found the scenes mournful. Poignant had been active in the Naturalist club in Perth in the 1930s with pioneer ecologist Vincent Serventy, and articles had appeared in the Perth papers about the danger of erosion from excessive land clearance.
Against the naturalists conservation concerns were promotors like Lieutenant-Governor Sir James Mitchell who opened an exhibition of water colours by Leach Barker in the Newspaper House Art Gallery in Perth in June 1947. Mitchell approved the paintings of 'ring-barked, fire-scarred forest giants standing in paddocks green with pasture' saying: 'There may be some among us who object to dead trees, but there must be dead trees if we are to produce. We have a very beautiful and productive country and I would like everyone to be able to see the places shown in the paintings.'
Long-view landscapes were not a particular interest of Poignant’s work, he liked to get closer or to include flora, fauna and people. He printed and used Mt Warning over the rest of his career. The image takes its place in a long history of contemplation of the paradox of destruction, settlement and production in Australia from mid 19th to mid 20th century. The speed and massive scale of clearance was still raw and confronting in 1953.
In 1956 Axel and Roslyn Poignant travelled to London and subsequently chose to be based in England. After Axel’s death in 1986 Roslyn wrote books, articles and undertook projects ensuring the extent and significance of Axel’s work was known to a new generation. Mt Warning is a major work from his last years based in Australia. A full monograph of Poignant’s rich long career and special place in Australian photography awaits.
From a 2025 perspective much has changed in the Northern Rivers that I think Axel Poignant would be pleased about. The scene he photographed is most likely softened with matured mixing farming with adjoining woodland. Much of the region’s original forest and environment remains. Few stands of ring barked trees are seen. Scholars have given considerable attention to the history and cultural significance of ring barking- the topic is still relevant.4 The peak is now under the dual name Wollumbin/Mt Warning and is part of a UNESCO protected site.
- The title used for this print varies: Originally Axel titled it Ring-barked forest, Mount Warning, NSW, 1953
Subsequent prints have used variations such as Mt. Warning, Destruction (destroyed rainforest northern New South Wales).
- The 1953 processing the Arnhem Land work was demanding - with 1953 also being a complex year in which Poignant, then separated, was widowed in April and later in the year married, Roslyn Izatt his partner since 1950.
- In May 1770, Captain James Cook named the prominent landmark - Mount Warning. The mountain is about 40 kilometres inland. It is known as Wollumbin by the local Indigenous peoples. Cook chose this name (Mt Warning) to alert other ships of dangerous offshore reefs that his ship, the Endeavour, had encountered near the northern New South Wales coast; being near present-day town of Kingscliff.
- For a recent contemplations see:
Barbara Holloway's Conversing with The Undead in Australian Woodlands, and
Susan K Martin's “Tragic ring-barked forests” and the “Wicked Wood”: haunting environmental anxiety in late nineteenth-century Australian literature", and contemporary photographs by Niki Cumpston.
For more on Axel Poignant - click here
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