Max Dupain

(Australia 22 Apr 1911–27 Jul 1992)

Title

Meat queue, Sydney

Year

1946, printed later

Media category

Photograph

Materials used

gelatin silver photograph

Dimensions

45.3 x 65.1cm image/sheet; 52.8 x 72.7cm board

Signature & date

Signed and dated l.r. and u.c. verso board, pencil "Max Dupain '46".

Credit

Purchased 1976

Accession number

119.1976

Location

Not on display

Further information

‘Meat queue, Sydney’ was one in a series of pictures Sydney photographer Max Dupain undertook for the Department of Information. When interviewed by curator Helen Ennis in 1991 Dupain said:
We were doing a story on queues after the war. They were all over the place – queues for buses, vegetables, fruit. I just happened to come across this butcher shop in Pitt Street, I think it was. Here they were all lined up, and I went around it, took a number of pictures, ultimately ending up with this sort of architectural approach with four of five females all dressed in black with black hats, not looking too happy about the world. Suddenly one of them breaks the queue when I’m focused up all ready to go, pure luck. 1

The solidity of the linear figures taken from mid distance beneath a meat coupon scale which will weigh a proportion of meat with the allowable coupons democratises the women. The picture is given a sudden focus as the central figure decides to move from the queue and unwanted contact is made with the woman ahead. Described as both a documentary photograph, but not necessarily a social comment, the economic food-rationing of postwar Australia is shown in this clear modernist image of black-and-white shapes in shallow space. Form rather than content defines this image. The central figure in a lighter coloured coat is balanced on either side by the darker coats as the black hats, which make a wave along the horizontal, parallel the line of meat hooks.

1. Ennis H 1991, ‘Max Dupain: photographs’, Australian National Gallery, Canberra p 18

Bibliography (7)

7079 (Editor), Photography: Art Gallery of New South Wales Collection, 2007, 137, 189, 197 (illus.).

Natasha Bullock (Australia), Australian postwar photodocumentary, Domain, 2004. no catalogue numbers

'The photo as document' by Natasha Bullock, pg.24-7, Look Jun 2004, Jun 2004, 24.

Gael Newton (Australia) (Author), Max Dupain retrospective 1930-1980, Sydney, 1980. cat.no. 68

Gael Newton (Australia) (Author), Silver and Grey - Fifty Years of Australian Photography 1900-1950, 1980. plate no. 94

Art In Sight 1996, 1996, 141, 144, 145, 149, 151, 155, 171.

Ewen McDonald (Australia) (Editor), The Art Gallery of New South Wales collections, Sydney, 1994, 58 (illus.).

Exhibition history (5)

Max Dupain Retrospective 1930-1980, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 29 Aug 1980–28 Sep 1980.

Celebrity Choice - Sam Neill, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 08 Jan 1987–08 Feb 1987.

Four Photographers, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 02 Jun 1990–19 Aug 1990.

Max Dupain - An Appreciation, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 11 Aug 1992–30 Aug 1992.

Australian postwar photodocumentary, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 12 Jun 2004–08 Aug 2004.