Twenty Contemporary Australian Photographers

In January 1987, representatives of the Hallmarks Cards Australia announced the company’s innovative plan to sponsor the development of photographic collections at the State Galleries in New South Wale and Victoria. This three-year sponsorship programme facilitated the purchase of works that would become part of their permanent collections.

The joint nature of this project has enabled an exhibition of work by twenty photographers, ten each from the collections of the National Gallery of Victoria and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Despite this unusual but necessarily selective framework, it is possible to draw certain conclusions regarding contemporary photography of the past decade.

Of the Victoria-based photographers highlighted, the feature most evident is the assured nature of their work. These are confident and sophisticated photographs intended to take their place among artworks in other media – a reflection of the artists’ commonly held belief that photography should be considered as part of wider art practice.

There is also a widespread concern for high print quality with many of the photographers utilising the latest in print techniques to produce sumptuously coloured, large scale photographs. However, despite their technological awareness it is surprising that no significant art photographers have as yet explored the possibilities of computer-generated imagery in their work.

Sourced from: Crombie, Isobel, and Sandra Byron. Twenty Contemporary Australian Photographers: From the Hallmark Cards Australian Photographic Collection. Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 1990.