Celebrating the contributions of women artists, Women Photographers 1900–1975: A Legacy of Light draws entirely from the NGV Collection. Thanks to the generous support of the Bowness Family Foundation, who also generously contributed to the publication, as well as Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family, Joy Anderson and Professor Wang Gungwu, among others, there have been more than 170 new acquisitions, since 2020, into the NGV Collection of works by women photographers dating between 1900–75.
‘The artists featured in the exhibition all demonstrate the development of ‘new visions’ by transforming their images into innovative formats and embracing their roles as image-makers’ Maggie Finch
Both the exhibition and the book Women Photographers 1900–1975: A Legacy of Light invite consideration of the contexts in which the women were working and their role as image-makers, looking afresh at the ways they created images of themselves, of others and of the times. The exhibition begins in industrialised cities at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when women were becoming increasingly involved in all aspects of photography. During this time, the women’s suffrage movement was also on the rise, with suffragettes emerging as vital image-makers, marching on the streets to demand equal rights and the right to vote, while shaping and sharing photographs as a way of controlling their own representation and to spread their message. 1According to curator and writer Val Williams, ‘From 1900 women began to use photography for a multitude of different reasons, to earn a living, to promote a cause, to record a significant moment, absorbing new influences, yet retaining a link to their Victorian past. Photography was, and remains, a means of communication and an art form exceptionally accessible and useful for women. More than any other tool of expression, the camera moved women into the public arena of the applied arts; versatile, portable and infinitely adaptable, its use proliferated.’ Val Williams, The Other Observers: Women Photographers in Britain 1900 to the Present, Virago Press, 1994, p. 24. These were times of great social, cultural, political and artistic change.
The exhibition ends with works taken in 1975, when Australian photographers such as Ponch Hawkes were capturing spirited images of Melbourne, including the Women’s Theatre Group performing outdoors beneath a Women’s Liberation banner. The year 1975 was proclaimed International Women’s Year by the United Nations General Assembly, with the aim of promoting women’s rights, ending discrimination against women, and advocating for the advancement of women in society.2United Nations, World Conference of the International Women’s Year 19 June – 2 July 1975, Mexico City, Mexico, Conferences | Women and gender equality,
At the NGV, the first group exhibition of women photographers was staged to coincide with the global celebrations that year. In addressing gender imbalances and the representation of women artists in the NGV Collection, the period from 1900 to 1975 represents an important time, allowing us to reflect on the past as a way of looking forward. Here are some of the exhibition themes.
Representing women
In Australia, May and Mina Moore’s commercial photographic studio responded to the desire for ‘picturesque presentation’ in photographic portraits popularised by the suffragettes, as seen in the duo’s dramatically lit portraits of stars of the stage. May Moore, who advocated for women in photography at the turn of the twentieth century, discussed the need for a deft combination of practical, artistic and business skills in a 1916 essay, ‘Photography for women’, for the Austral-Briton journal:
There is more, much more in the photo question than the mere ability to make a technically perfect photo or picture, and when it comes to successfully managing a studio of one’s own one wants to be many-sided indeed … one must be original …The woman who is to succeed … must make up her mind to equip on all points just as the men do.3May Moore, ‘Photography for women’, in Austral-Briton, 1916, 5 Feb. 1916, p. 23.
This type of performative portraiture (with the photographer directing and the subject acting), popularised by studios like May and Mina Moore’s, was developed further in the work of three women operating in Vienna during the interwar period. Madame d’Ora, and later Trude Fleischmann and Kitty Hoffman, all ran successful businesses, known for their stylised portraits of high-society figures, and the modern dancers that dominated the city’s nightlife. Fleischmann’s elegant portrait of the actress Sybille Binder is an image of empowerment: in her dress and pose, with withdrawn gaze, she can be read as one of the famed ‘New Women’ of the 1920s.
Michiko Yamawaki’s images of everyday life in Japan in 1933 display the differing roles of women at a time of great social change. We see mothers carrying children; women in kimono holding parasols; and moga (modern girls) wearing knee-length dresses and Western-inspired clothes. 4See, for example, Mariko Nagai, ‘Moga: The audacity of being a modern girl’, 26 Feb. 2020, National Gallery of Victoria,
Photographs of children, mothers, older women and acts of caregiving are also recurring subjects between 1900 and 1975. Such stereotypically ‘feminine’ photography, which was viewed as a suitable occupation for women photographers, nevertheless allowed for great innovation in image-making. For example, Ruth Hollick’s highly successful photographic studio in Melbourne specialised in studies of children. Prior to establishing her city studio, Hollick bought herself a car and travelled to regional towns, advertising her visits in advance.5Gael Newton & Karen Jacubec, ‘Ruth Hollick’, Photoria: Australian Women Behind the Lens 1850 to 1950, Photoria,
Similarly, in the 1970s, while living among friends in America, Australian artist Christine Godden created intimate and tender images of the people around her, including pregnant friends. Godden’s representation of bodies is naturalistic, seemingly spontaneous, and informed by fine print traditions, resulting in the dynamic framing of bodies in otherwise serene, everyday settings.
Patterns of connection
Through my research, I noticed the frequent mentions of relationships between women photographers and artists. I started a hand-drawn map illustrating the networks and neighbourhoods of photographers that became apparent. The mapping shows that there were many formal and informal paths of influence between the artists.
For example, there are fascinating examples of recurring collaborations between women artists, across different artistic fields. Barbara Morgan met the pioneering choreographer and dancer Martha Graham in 1935; their connection lasted over many decades. An iconic image that reflects their collaborative approach is Letter to the world, 1940, in which Morgan captures Graham mid-motion in a studio setting, a scene that captures the instant while remaining timeless. Letter to the world distils Graham’s body and dress with all its grace, tension and stresses, as if mirroring the times in which Graham and Morgan were living.
During the interwar period, the intertwined lives of avant-garde artists in Paris often played out in artworks depicting friendships and love. While long known as the inspiration for the abstracted representation of grief in Pablo Picasso’s Weeping woman, 1937, Dora Maar was a sophisticated artist and image-maker, deeply connected within the avant-garde community. 6Patrick McCaughey, ‘A witness to Guernica: Picasso’s Weeping woman’, Art Journal, vol. 27, National Gallery of Victoria, June 2014. Further, the 1994 exhibition Picasso and the Weeping Women at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art focused on this series. In the winter of 1935, she turned the lens of her camera onto Picasso, taking four studio portraits of the artist in her Paris studio. She also created intense collaborative tableaux with the Argentinian painter and writer Léonor Fini, such as Léonor Fini lying on a floor strewn with clothes, c. 1936.
In Mexico, Kati Horna frequently photographed her close friend, British-born painter and writer Leonora Carrington. The two socialised within their circle of Surrealist expatriate artists in Mexico City. Horna’s photocollage Leonora Carrington, 1957, superimposes an image of her friend’s face onto a reproduction of the painting Portrait of an unknown young man, 1518, by Hans Holbein the Younger. This merging of the photograph with the reproduction of the painting creates a jarring, humorous clash of genders and time periods.
New visions
The artists featured in the exhibition all demonstrate the development of ‘new visions’ by transforming their images into innovative formats and embracing their roles as image-makers. Lucia Moholy was crucial in the development of photographic experimentation at the Bauhaus school in Germany. Between 1923 and 1928, Moholy produced photographs centred around the school’s Dessau campus, documenting its architecture and taking portraits of staff and students. Moholy’s angled compositions, as seen in Bauhaus residences Dessau, kitchen – sideboard, c. 1926, emphasise the Bauhaus design principles of modern architecture for daily life. Her images were vital in constructing a visual legacy of the Bauhaus ideals and teachings.
The influence of such European photographers is also seen in Australian artist Olive Cotton’s Teacup ballet, 1935. Cotton had purchased an inexpensive set of cups and saucers to replace the mugs in photographer Max Dupain’s Sydney studio, where she was a studio assistant. 7In the 1980s, Teacup ballet was revisited as a critical work in both Australian art history and the history of modernism. The work is now recognised as an icon of Australian photography, thanks to art historians such as Helen Ennis. Cotton held a unique place as one of the few modernist women photographers recognised as working in Australia in the 1930s. She was the only female member of the modernist Contemporary Camera Groupe and was the only woman included in their 1938 exhibition and the Australian Commemorative Salon from that same year. Teacup ballet was immediately successful – it was the first of Cotton’s photographs to be shown overseas when it was included in the London Salon of Photography in 1935. She realised the potential for a dynamic arrangement, the handles of the cups ‘reminding me of arms akimbo’; in efforts ‘to express a dance theme’, Cotton attempted various arrangements, before utilising a spotlight to accentuate shadows, resulting in the ‘ballet-like composition’.8Olive Cotton, quoted in Helen Ennis, Olive Cotton: A Life in Photography, Fourth Estate, Sydney, 2019, p. 99
Lola Álvarez Bravo was deeply attuned to the international modern photography movement through her friendships with the artistic avant-garde in Mexico City. Las lavanderas (The washerwomen), c. 1940, is one of several photographs created by Álvarez Bravo of women washing their clothes at a waterfront, with children and dogs nearby. The sun casts long shadows from a nearby structure, transforming the scene of everyday labour into one of dynamic angles and forms.
Women Photographers 1900–1975: A Legacy of Light does not attempt to present one voice for all women photographers. It presents a multiplicity of voices. The works by these women reflect a multitude of new ideas that were influenced by the complex social, cultural and political times. Such plurality reminded me of a quote from the artist Christine Godden:
‘Women artists (like myself) are painstakingly building monuments of their own ideas from many tiny separate elements.’ Each element, like each image, is a collective testament to the creativity and tenacity of these artists.9 Christine Godden, quoted in Helen Ennis, ‘Timeliness: photographs by Christine Godden’, in Light Touch – Photographs by Christine Godden, 2009, unpaginated.
This is an edited extract from the publication Women Photographers 1900–1975: A Legacy of Light, published by National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne and Hatje Cantz, Germany and published in NGV Magazine | Issue 55 Nov–Dec 2025.
The NGV wishes to thank the Bowness Family Foundation for their generous support of the publication.
Notes
According to curator and writer Val Williams, ‘From 1900 women began to use photography for a multitude of different reasons, to earn a living, to promote a cause, to record a significant moment, absorbing new influences, yet retaining a link to their Victorian past. Photography was, and remains, a means of communication and an art form exceptionally accessible and useful for women. More than any other tool of expression, the camera moved women into the public arena of the applied arts; versatile, portable and infinitely adaptable, its use proliferated.’ Val Williams, The Other Observers: Women Photographers in Britain 1900 to the Present, Virago Press, 1994, p. 24.
United Nations, World Conference of the International Women’s Year 19 June – 2 July 1975, Mexico City, Mexico, Conferences | Women and gender equality, .
May Moore, ‘Photography for women’, in Austral-Briton, 1916, 5 Feb. 1916, p. 23.
See, for example, Mariko Nagai, ‘Moga: The audacity of being a modern girl’, 26 Feb. 2020, National Gallery of Victoria, .
Gael Newton & Karen Jacubec, ‘Ruth Hollick’, Photoria: Australian Women Behind the Lens 1850 to 1950, Photoria, .
Patrick McCaughey, ‘A witness to Guernica: Picasso’s Weeping woman’, Art Journal, vol. 27, National Gallery of Victoria, June 2014. Further, the 1994 exhibition Picasso and the Weeping Women at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art focused on this series.
In the 1980s, Teacup ballet was revisited as a critical work in both Australian art history and the history of modernism. The work is now recognised as an icon of Australian photography, thanks to art historians such as Helen Ennis. Cotton held a unique place as one of the few modernist women photographers recognised as working in Australia in the 1930s. She was the only female member of the modernist Contemporary Camera Groupe and was the only woman included in their 1938 exhibition and the Australian Commemorative Salon from that same year. Teacup ballet was immediately successful – it was the first of Cotton’s photographs to be shown overseas when it was included in the London Salon of Photography in 1935.
Olive Cotton, quoted in Helen Ennis, Olive Cotton: A Life in Photography, Fourth Estate, Sydney, 2019, p. 99
Christine Godden, quoted in Helen Ennis, ‘Timeliness: photographs by Christine Godden’, in Light Touch – Photographs by Christine Godden, 2009, unpaginated.