National Library of Australia - Gateways

ISSN ISSN 1443-0568 | no. 65 | October 2003


National Library’s Photography Collection
Seen In a New Light
Unknown photographer. Escort for Amy Johnson’s landing in Sydney, 4 June 1930
Unknown photographer. Escort for Amy Johnson’s landing in Sydney, 4 June 1930
Pictures Collection, nla.pic-an24664499

Photography’s unique ability to capture the moment is superbly illustrated in the National Library of Australia’s exhibition In a New Light: Australian Photography 1850s –1930s on display from 9 October 2003 – 26 January 2004.

The exhibition is a treasure-trove of defining moments in 19th- and early-20th-century Australia including the first locomotive in 1875, Federation, Gallipoli, celebrations at the end of World War I and the Melbourne Police Strike in 1923. Many of the 300 images, drawn from over 600 000 photographs in the Pictures Collection, are on display for the first time.

Come in, Old Sydney 1906 by Harold Cazneaux Unknown photographer. [‘Enlist, the Empire Calls’ George Street and  Martin Place, Sydney, New South Wales] c.1915.
Harold Cazneaux (1878–1953)
Come in, Old Sydney 1906
Pictures Collection
nla.pic-an2231667
Unknown photographer
[‘Enlist, the Empire Calls’ George Street and
Martin Place, Sydney, New South Wales] c.1915.
Pictures Collection
nla.pic-an24601231

Director-General Jan Fullerton said, ‘The National Library has one of the most important photographic collections in the country. In a New Light, a two-part exhibition, is the first to explore the Pictures Collection in depth and presents a wonderful opportunity to celebrate its riches. It will appeal to a great variety of people for the way it showcases the growth of our nation alongside the development of photography as a medium.’

Portrait of a Young Woman Looking  Out from behind a Curtain by Stewart & Co.
Stewart & Co.
Portrait of a Young Woman Looking
Out from behind a Curtain
[between 1871 and 1890] (detail)
Pictures Collection
nla.pic-an24647769

Groups of photographs of pioneering life, portraits of Aboriginal people and the building of towns and cities tell Australia’s most compelling stories. Our distinctive landscape is well represented, spanning the commonplace to the picturesque.

In a New Light will be of interest to photography professionals in its display of the full range of approaches—documentary, commercial (including portraiture, fashion, dance and theatre), art photography, photography for government agencies, and amateur photography; as well as a great diversity of techniques—ambrotype, albumen, bromoil, gelatin silver and stereograph.

Exhibition curator Helen Ennis, one of Australia’s leading photographic historians, and Senior Lecturer, Australian National University, School of Art said, ‘To explore such a diverse and rich collection and turn it into an exhibition was a fantastic experience. In a New Light will extend our knowledge of photography, history and the Library’s collections, ultimately changing the way we think about photography’s role in representing Australian life.’

Frank Hurley (1885–1962)
The Ruins of the Cloth Hall during the
Third Battle of Ypres. A View through a Cloister Window
 1917
Pictures Collection
nla.pic-an23816566

Australia’s best-known photographers of the period are represented—T.S. Glaister, Charles Bayliss, Captain Samuel Sweet, Charles Nettleton, Frank Hurley and Harold Cazneaux—along with a host of amateur and anonymous photographers.

  • There are images of famous people—singer Dame Nellie Melba, World War I hero Simpson and his donkey, Olympic swimmer Fanny Durack and politician Billy Hughes;
  • Quirky images—T.D. Jennings ‘the man of greatest weight in the community’ taken 1885; a motor car on the Shackleton expedition 1907–1909;
  • Photographs that will amaze—a detailed telescopic image of the moon taken in the 1880s;
  • A delightful image—a chubby, smiling baby of 1906; 
  • Important images—panoramas of Sydney in the 1870s–1880s and townscapes of Melbourne and Adelaide from a similar period;
  • A portrait of a beautiful young woman taken in the late 1870s; and
  • Quintessentially Australian images—woolsorting and classing at Burrawang in the 1890s.

A dedicated website is available at <www.nla.gov.au/exhibitions/newlight>.

In a New Light: Australian Photography
from 1850s – 1930s

National Library of Australia
Parkes Place, Canberra
9 October 2003 – 26 January 2004
Exhibition Gallery
Open daily 9am – 5pm
Free Admission
Closed Christmas Day

This exhibition is the first in a two-part survey of the National Library’s collection. In a New Light: Australian Photography 1930s – 2000, will be shown from 19 August – 14 November 2004.

The exhibition is supported by
Novotel Canberra.
For accommodation enquiries
and bookings,
telephone: (02) 6245 5000 or
Canberra Getaways 1800 100 660.

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Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: mbrooks@nla.gov.au