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Australian Women’s Historical Photography
Other Times, Other Views
By Anne Maxwell & Lucy Van
Australian Women’s Historical Photography: Other Times, Other Views focuses on the works of six Australian women who were working as photographers in the period 1850–1950. It critically examines their works against the historical backdrop of settler violence towards Indigenous Australians, the First Women’s Movement, the Great War of 1914–1918, Australia’s imperial occupation of New Guinea, the final years of Chinese Nationalist Party rule in China and debates about photography’s status as an art form.
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About This Book
Australian Women’s Historical Photography: Other Times, Other Views examines the photographs produced by six talented women photographers against the historical backdrop of settler violence towards Indigenous Australians, the First Women’s Movement, the Great War of 1914–1918, Australia’s imperial occupation of New Guinea, the final years of Chinese Nationalist Party rule in China and debates about photography’s status as an art form. Women’s works from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have been down-played or even ignored in existing accounts of Australia’s cultural history, and this study is aimed at rectifying this situation. At the same time, the book demonstrates why amateur works are just as important as commercial works to our understanding of the past.
● Methodologically, the book draws on scholarship from history, art history, anthropology, sociology, gender studies and cultural studies to create an interdisciplinary critical framework that will be of interest to a broad range of academic and archival researchers. It is also a framework that is critically sensible of its own groundings in the postcolonial and feminist present thereby reflecting what is meaningful at any given historical moment.
● Finally, this book responds to the pronounced lack of visibility of Australian realist, documentary and commercial women’s works. The few histories of Australian women’s photography that exist pay more attention to modernist and contemporary works, and when they do mention earlier women photographer’s works, they seldom go into much detail. They also ignore the works of the earliest Indigenous women photographers, women who traveled and made photographs abroad. By presenting a carefully contextualized and detailed study of works by six Australian women photographers who worked in the late colonial era and whose works in all sorts of small and surprising ways chronicled the impacts of some of the periods more disturbing as well as enlightened events, we will not only add to knowledge of Australian women’s photography, we will also broaden and enrich the frames of women’s photography and Australian history more generally.
Reviews
‘A deep dive into the work of six women practitioners, this book adds some much-needed texture and nuance to the existing history of Australian photography. Ranging from professional portraits to personal snapshots, the many photographs reproduced in Other Times, Other Views document what its authors call an “idiosyncratic life cycle” for the women who made them, providing significant insights not only into Australia’s past but also an opportunity for reflection on that nation’s present, and even its possible futures.’— Geoffrey Batchen, Professor of History of Art, University of Oxford
‘This book changes how we see Australian photography. Sharing the vision of six remarkable women of the late colonial period, from celebrity portraiture, to modernist abstraction, to loving records of First Nations family life, it offers a fresh, highly readable perspective on Australian history and culture.’ — Jane Lydon, Wesfarmers Chair in Australian History, The University of Western Australia
‘This book looks beyond accepted social, political, cultural and aesthetic readings of the photograph. In a long overdue reassessment of those taken by women in Australia’s period of cultural modernity, the authors ably consider the importance of the medium, in all its diversity, as social document and decolonising aid.’ — Judy Annear, Honorary Fellow in Culture and Communication, The University of Melbourne
‘This remarkable new text adds considerably to our understanding of women photographers in Australia. The authors’ inclusion of an Indigenous photographer, Mavis Phillips, makes an especially noteworthy contribution to the discipline.’ —Heather Waldroup, Appalachian State University, USA
‘This book is a much-needed study which brings to light the unique artistic perspective of six spectacular Australian women artists whose photographs are remarkable creations in themselves as well as illustrating remarkable histories. It will be a revelation to all.’ —David Nichols, University of Melbourne, Australia
Author Information
Anne Maxwell is Professor in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. She has published five books and numerous articles and essays and on postcolonial and colonial literature and photography.
Lucy Van is a Senior Research Associate in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. Her research areas include colonial photography and postcolonial poetry.
Series
Anthem Studies in Australian History
Table of Contents
Preface; Acknowledgements; Introduction: Australian Women’s Photography and Colonial Modernity; 1. Memorialising the Great War; 2. Australian Women’s Photography Abroad; 3. Visions and Counter-visions; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index
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