Harold Cazneaux

(New Zealand, Australia 30 Mar 1878–19 Jun 1953)

Title

Washing pattern, Woolloomooloo

Year

circa 1910-1915

Media category

Photograph

Materials used

bromoil photograph

Dimensions

25.4 x 15.0cm image/sheet

Signature & date

Not signed. Not dated.

Credit

Gift of the Cazneaux family 1975

Accession number

156.1975

Location

Not on display

Further information

In a 1910 article on urban photography for the journal ‘Australasian Photo-Review’, Cazneaux regretted the neglect of the city as a subject by his fellow photographers: ‘in a big city we have the humour and pathos of life, the ease or struggle for existence.’1 Sydney’s streets and lanes, harbour and markets were a recurrent subject of his work. Unlike his artist friends Lionel Lindsay and Sydney Ure Smith, who at the same time were recording picturesque elements of old Sydney in etchings and drawings, Cazneaux’s photographs are rarely documentary or topographical. As with ‘Washing pattern, Woolloomooloo’, they are frequently about light and form. Cazneaux believed, with other artists of his generation, that it was light which would eventually characterise a distinctive national art.

1. Cazneaux H 1910, ‘In and about the city with a hand-camera’, ‘Australasian Photo-Review’, 22 Aug p 426

Bibliography (6)

Natasha Bullock, Harold Cazneaux: artist in photography 2008, 2008.

Natasha Bullock (Curator), Soft Shadows and Sharp Lines: Australian photography from Cazneaux to Dupain 2002, Domain, 2002. no catalogue numbers

Philip Geeves and Gael Newton, Philip Geeves presents Cazneaux's Sydney 1904-1934, Sydney, 1980, 42, 43 (illus.).

Robert McFarlane, Critic's Choice 1994, Sydney, 1994.

Steven Miller, Photography: Art Gallery of New South Wales Collection, 'Australian pictorialism', pg.71-91, Sydney, 2007, 82 (illus.).

Gael Newton, Project 7: Harold Cazneaux 1878 - 1953 1975, Sydney, 1975. cat.no. 7

Exhibition history (8)

Project 7 - Harold Cazneaux: 1878 - 1953 (1975), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 30 Aug 1975–28 Sep 1975

Harold Cazneaux, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 22 Dec 1989–11 Mar 1990

Souvenirs of Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 14 Mar 1992–10 May 1992

Critic's Choice, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 22 Apr 1994–10 Jul 1994

We Are Family, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 15 Oct 1994–20 Nov 1994

Soft Shadows and Sharp Lines: Australian photography from Cazneaux to Dupain, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 30 Sep 2002–17 Nov 2002

Modernism/Japonism in photography 1920s-1940s: Ishida Kiichiro and the Sydney Camera Circle:

Shôto Museum of Art, Tokyo 23 Jul 2002–08 Sep 2002
The Akita Museum of Modern Art, Japan 25 Apr 2003–01 Jun 2003
Museum of Sydney, Sydney 20 Dec 2003–25 Apr 2004

Harold Cazneaux: artist in photography, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 05 Jun 2008–10 Aug 2008