Title
Jack and his family, Pingelly, Western Australia
circa 1938
printed 1983
Artist
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Details
- Dates
- circa 1938
printed 1983 - Media category
- Photograph
- Materials used
- gelatin silver photograph
- Dimensions
- 27.0 x 35.7 cm image; 30.3 x 40.3 cm sheet
- Signature & date
Signed l.r., pencil "Axel Poignant". Dated l.c. verso, pencil "...c.1938/ ...1983".
- Credit
- Purchased 1983
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 156.1983
- 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 Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander 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.
The people depicted here are, from left: Beth (behind), Jack Michael, Vera (held by Jack), Amy (behind), Eva Michael nee Humes (Noongar), Nora (held by Eva), Mervyn (back), Albert (front), and Marjorie Nelson nee Michael (b.1930) (back). Jack Michael was also a descendant of a Native American family, reared in the New Norcia mission.
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Exhibition history
Shown in 4 exhibitions
Axel Poignant - Hal Missingham, Exhibition Venue Unknown, , 1941–1941
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
We Are Family, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 15 Oct 1994–20 Nov 1994
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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. 23
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