The Glamour Show: Studio Photographs 1925-1955
Dates:
9 June – 10 July 1987
Artists:
Cecil Beaton, Margot Donald, Max Dupain, Ruzzie Green, Philippe Halsman, Horst P. Horst, George Hoyningen-Huene, George Platt Lynes, Paul Outerbridge, Edward Steichen, Athol Shmith, Wolfgang Sievers
Curator:
Helen Ennis
Location:
Monash University Gallery
Monash University, Clayton Campus
About the exhibition
Spanning celebrity portraiture, fashion and advertising photography, The Glamour Show presented a selection of historic images drawn from the photographic collection of the National Gallery of Australia.
The exhibition highlighted the role of the studio and staging in modern photography, particularly within commercial practices. Elements of photography’s artifice—studio sets, props, dramatic lighting, the use of models, unusual printing techniques, retouching and hand-colouring—were revealed as central to the seductive power of these images.
Framed by the emergence of the advertising industry in the 1920s, the exhibition also traced the influence of the New Photography movement. Developed by avant-garde artists in Germany and the Soviet Union, this movement embraced sharp focus, striking perspectives (such as upward and downward camera angles and close-up framing), and bold, geometric compositions to express visions of a radically transformed society.
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Image: George Hurrell, Jean Harlow at the Sunset Boulevard Studio 1936, gelatin silver photograph, 18.8 x 21.6cm