Title
Aboriginal stockmens' camp, Wave Hill cattle station, Central Australia
circa 1946
printed 1980
Artist
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Details
- Other Title
- Aboriginal camp, wave Hill
- Dates
- circa 1946
printed 1980 - Media category
- Photograph
- Materials used
- gelatin silver photograph
- Dimensions
- 23.2 x 36.0 cm image; 38.1 x 51.3 cm sheet
- Signature & date
Signed and dated l.r. sheet, pencil "Axel Poignant 1980". Dated l.c. sheet, pencil "...1946".
- Credit
- Purchased 1978
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 178.1978
- Copyright
- © Courtesy Roslyn Poignant
- Artist information
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Axel Poignant
Works in the collection
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About
Though not born in Australia, Axel Poignant's work is largely about the 'Outback', its flora and fauna and the traditions of Australian and Indigenous identity. Poignant was born in Yorkshire in 1906 to a Swedish father and English mother, and arrived in Australia in 1926 seeking work and adventure. After tough early years of unemployment and homelessness, he eventually settled in Perth and found work as a portrait photographer, before taking to the road and the bush in search of new subjects. Poignant became fascinated with the photo-essay as a means of adding real humanity to the medium, and much of his work is in this form. The close relationships he developed with Aboriginal people on his travels are recorded in compassionate portraits of these people and their lives - the low angles and closely cropped frames appear more natural and relaxed than the stark compositions of earlier ethnographic photography.
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Exhibition history
Shown in 4 exhibitions
Axel Poignant: photographs 1922-1980, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 17 Jul 1982–29 Aug 1982
Four Photographers, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 02 Jun 1990–19 Aug 1990
The photograph and Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 21 Mar 2015–08 Jun 2015
Still in my mind: Gurindji location, experience and visuality, UNSW Galleries, Paddington, 05 May 2017–05 Aug 2017
Still in my mind: Gurindji location, experience and visuality, University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane, 17 Aug 2017–12 Nov 2017
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Bibliography
Referenced in 1 publication
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Gael Newton, Edmund Capon AM, OBE and Hal Missingham, Axel Poignant retrospective, Sydney, 1982. cat.no. 33
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