28 May – 1 August 2010
A survey of Australian documentary photography from the 1950s to the 1970s,
Candid Camera comprises more than eighty photographs by renowned Australian photographers,
including Max Dupain, David Moore, Jeff Carter, Robert McFarlane, Mervyn Bishop, Rennie Ellis,
Carol Jerrems and Roger Scott. These photographers have been great observers, capturing memorable
images of people at leisure or engaged in everyday activities – images which appear unposed,
spontaneous, or with their subjects captured unaware.
The photographs range from images of the famous – such as Prime Ministers, boxing champion
Lionel Rose, musicians Bon Scott and Daddy Cool – to those of ordinary people who seem familiar to
us as a result of these images. These include David Moore’s European migrants arriving in Sydney,
1966, Rennie Ellis’s Cosmetics salesgirl, Toorak Rd, c.1970 and the two women waiting at an
Adelaide bus stop in Robert McFarlane’s photograph from 1976. Many of these photographs have only
been recently acquired by the Art Gallery of South Australia, and this exhibition will provide the
first opportunity to view them displayed together.
Roger Scott, Australia, born 1944,
Ghost train, 1972, Sydney, gelatin silver photograph, 27.0 x 40.0 cm (image).South
Australian Government Grant 2009. Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. © Roger Scott, Courtesy
of Josef Lebovic Gallery, Sydney
