Spirit of Endurance

"They sent me, in my Buick car up to Iron Knob near Port Augusta, S.A. There I saw and felt the impulse of the Great Inland Central Australia. The mysterious Flingers Range dominated the skyline. This strange attraction "once seen never forgotten" brought me on several other overland motor trips up through these ranges in the years before the Second World War".
 
Harold Cazneaux, letter to Jack Cato, 9 March 1951
NLA MS 5416

A new world of photographic possibilities opened for Cazneaux. He was both a friend and admirer or the painter Hans Heysen, whom he had photographed in 1935. Heysen’s paintings were praised by some contemporary critics as quintessentially Australian; a reflection of a national character. Cazneaux, moved by the grandeur and beauty of the Australian landscape with its constantly changing light, wished to share the painter’s vision. The result, Spirit of Endurance (1937), a majestic Australian gum, photographed at Wilpena Pound in the Flinders Ranges, South Australia, became one of Cazneaux’s most enduring images. (The tree survives and is now refereed to as "The Cazneaux Tree".)

Spirit of Endurance  
Spirit of Endurance
1937 Wilpena Pound, Flinders Ranges, SA.
Gelatin silver photograph (Kodura Etching Brown)
28.5 x 34.1 (NLA Accession # C27-1)
nla.pic-an2384497
 
Poplars, Tumut Late Harvesting aka The Last Load
Poplars, Tumut
c. 1930 NSW. Bromoil
34.5 x 23 (NLA Accession # C30-9)
nla.pic-an2384523
Late Harvesting aka The Last Load
c. 1920. Composite bromoil, reversed
21.1 x 32.9 (NLA Accession # C30-6)
nla.pic-an2384520
The Veil Australian Stock Route
The Veil
1915 Blue Mountains, NSW. Bromoil
26.9 x 16.6 (NLA Accession # C28-12)
nla.pic-an2384476
Australian Stock Route
c. 1925 near Crookwell, NSW. Gelatin silver photograph
27.1 x 34.4 (NLA Accession # C28-7)
nla.pic-an2384470
Shadow Play The Sapling Family
Shadow Play
c. 1919. Bromoil
19.5 x 26.4 (NLA Accession # C29-2)
nla.pic-an2384483
The Sapling Family
c. 1920, Thirroul, NSW. Gelatin silver photograph
35 x 26.8 (NLA Accession # C31-14)
nla.pic-an2384546
Distant Ranges in the Flinders aka Wilpena Heights, South Australia Old South Road, near Mittagong
Distant Ranges in the Flinders aka Wilpena Heights, South Australia
1937. Bromoil
15.6 x 25.3 (NLA Accession # C27-15)
nla.pic-an2384513
Old South Road, near Mittagong
c. 1912, NSW. Bromoil
33 x 27.8 (NLA Accession # C29-7)
nla.pic-an2384489
The Valley By the Sea Winter Sunlight aka Morning Sunlight
The Valley By the Sea
1937 Second Valley, SA. Bromoil
23.1 x 33.3 (NLA Accession # C31-2)
nla.pic-an2384533
Winter Sunlight aka Morning Sunlight
1907 Berry’s Bay, Sydney. Gelatin silver photograph
26.8 x 35.8 (NLA Accession # C29-3)
nla.pic-an2384484

I Sydney Skyline I Steam & Sunshine I Sydney, Old & New I
I Spirit of Endurance I
Frensham I The Home I
I
The Wheel of Youth I The Cazneaux Family of Photographers I

I The Catalogue I Exhibition Home Page I

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Last updated 16 December 2002