Title
Mangudja, singing his moraiin song, Liverpool River Arnhem Land
1952
printed 1980
Artist
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Details
- Other Title
- The songman
- Dates
- 1952
printed 1980 - Media category
- Photograph
- Materials used
- gelatin silver photograph
- Dimensions
- 32.8 x 28.3 cm image; 40.6 x 35.6 cm sheet
- Signature & date
Signed and dated l.r. sheet, pencil "Axel Poignant 1980". Dated l.c. sheet, pencil "...1952".
- Credit
- Purchased 1978
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 180.1978
- 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 3 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
Critic's Choice, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 22 Apr 1994–10 Jul 1994
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Bibliography
Referenced in 3 publications
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Josef Lebovic Gallery and Helen Ennis, Masterpieces of Australian Photography, Twentieth Century Photography, Sydney, 1989, 182, 183 (illus.). cat.no. 328
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Robert McFarlane, Critic's Choice, Sydney, 1994.
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Gael Newton, Edmund Capon AM, OBE and Hal Missingham, Axel Poignant retrospective, Sydney, 1982. cat.no. 67
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