Masters of Australian Photography: Max Dupain

Michael Reid Sydney is continuing our Masters of Australian Photography series with a new exhibition centred on one of the single most iconic and indelible images in the Australian photobook: Max Dupain’s Sunbaker.

Showcasing masterful storytelling through the work of the 20th century’s greatest visual innovators, Masters of Australian Photography is now presenting a rare edition of Dupain’s elegant, enduring, totemic image from 1937, drawn from an important private collection and available to view and acquire below.

“Max Dupain’s Sunbaker is Australia’s best-known photograph,” note the curators at the NGV, where, as with all of this country’s most important institutions, the work is enshrined in the museum’s permanent collection. “Following the depletions of wartime, sunlight had a special meaning as an elemental force capable of promoting physical and spiritual wellbeing. The artist positioned his camera almost at ground level to emphasise the sunbaker’s domination of his environment and his almost palpable connection with the replenishing forces of nature.”

“Sunbaker represents the shifts in Dupain’s practice from private snapshot to public domain, from ardent modernist experimentation to determined recording of actuality and form,” note the curators at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, where the work is also held in the permanent collection. “Within this image is Dupain’s pervasive interest in the individual body as a metaphor for social wellbeing and an exemplar of pure form.”

Flanked by rare editions of other essential works from Dupain’s photographic archive, Sunbaker is now showing in the upstairs exhibition space at Michael Reid Sydney.

For enquiries, please email danielsoma@michaelreid.com.au