Athol Shmith
Encyclopedia
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Australia, and contributed to the promotion of international photography within Australia as much as to the fostering of Australian photography in the world scene.
Early life
Shmith was born in Melbourne in 1914 and came from a comfortable and cultured middle-class family; his father was a respected chemist and a fine pianist. Athol Shmith played the vibraphone and considered music as a possible career. His father gave him a camera as a teenager and what was a hobby became a profession in his late teens when Shmith, who had an interest in theatre and played at charity performances, was asked to take the publicity photographs and stills for a show. He saw there was a career in his former hobby and, supported by his family, established a studio in St Kilda. For the first five years he specialised in theatre work and society and wedding portraits.Collins Street Studio
In 1939 he moved to a studio in Collins Street (where all the best photographers were located), run with the assistance of his brother and sister. Shmith first made his reputation with society weddings and portraits, but his professional break came in the early 1930s when he gained the contract to take portraits of visiting celebrities for the newly formed Australian Broadcasting Commission. Shmith’s work expanded to include a range of commercial advertising and illustration and appeared in local society magazines. He exhibited his works in photographic salons at home and abroad, gaining a Fellowship of the Royal Photographic SocietyRoyal Photographic Society
The Royal Photographic Society is the world's oldest national photographic society. It was founded in London, United Kingdom in 1853 as The Photographic Society of London with the objective of promoting the Art and Science of Photography...
in 1933. He also held an appointment as Vice Regal Photographer in Melbourne and had the contract for work for theatre producer J.C. Williamson.
Influenced in his early career by the soft impressionistic style of turn-of-the-century art photographers, Shmith later embraced the clearer light, bolder compositions and design emphasis of modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
. By the late 1930s, he was seen as representing a new modern style of work. After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Shmith embraced the "New Look" and the spirit of post-war recovery in fashion illustration, becoming the most respected professionalin the field in Australia.
Athol Shmith was urbane, charming and witty and also madcap. Shmith was less concerned with the gravitas and moral exemplar of ‘greatness’ than with the imparting of elan, style and creative spirit. He was fascinated with his subjects rather than in awe of them. Shmith, who prided himself on his skill in lighting, had learned much from the model of European modernism and the quirkiness of surrealism. He was also indebted to the top-lit and back-lit glowing ‘Hollywood lighting’ style of portraiture popularised by Californian photographer George Hurrell
George Hurrell
George Hurrell was a photographer who made a significant contribution to the image of glamour presented by Hollywood during the 1930s and 1940s.-Early life:...
in the 1920s and 1930s. He described his portrait of actress Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh, Lady Olivier was an English actress. She won the Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire , a role she also played on stage in London's West End, as well as for her portrayal of the southern belle Scarlett O'Hara, alongside Clark...
in costume as lit by his ‘inky dinky light’, a top spotlight diffused by tracing paper. Shmith treated his female sitters and models as princesses.
Contributions to Photography in Australia
Throughout the 1960s Shmith remained energetic and dynamic in his development of fashion work. By the close of the decade Shmith began to take on roles in photographic heritage and education. In 1968 he helped to establish a photography department at the National Gallery of VictoriaNational Gallery of Victoria
The National Gallery of Victoria is an art gallery and museum in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest and the largest public art gallery in Australia. Since December 2003, NGV has operated across two sites...
and in 1971 closed his business to take on a new role as head of the Photography Department at Prahran College of Advanced Education, on the same Prahran campus as is now occupied by Swinburne University of Technology
Swinburne University of Technology
Swinburne University of Technology is an Australian public dual sector university based in Melbourne, Victoria. The institution was founded by the Honourable George Swinburne in 1908 and achieved university status in June 1992...
. He taught there with his business partner John Cato and the film-maker Paul Cox
Paul Cox
Paulus Henriqus Benedictus "Paul" Cox is an award-winning Australian film director.Cox was born in Venlo, Limburg, the Netherlands, the son of Else , a native of Germany, and Wim Cox, a documentary film producer. Cox emigrated to Australia in 1965...
until ill health caused his retirement from the College in 1979, Shmith was a significant support to the rising generation of documentary and artist photographers such as Sue Ford, Carol Jerrems
Carol Jerrems
Carol Jerrems was an Australian photographer who produced the image Vale Street. She documented the counter-culture spirit of Melbourne in the 1970s...
and Bill Henson
Bill Henson
Bill Henson is an Australian contemporary art photographer.-Background:Henson's art has been exhibited in many locations, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Venice Biennale, the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales in...
whom he closely mentored. Shmith’s work was largely based in his home city of Melbourne.
Legacy
Athol Shmith’s photographs created a world of grace, glamour and allure. In later life Shmith undervalued his own commercial work but, under the new wave of interest in photography as art, Shmith’s work was collected by the major art museums in the 1970s and 1980s and he had a retrospective in 1977 at the Australian Centre for Photography. He was made a member of the Order of AustraliaOrder of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
in 1981. A small monograph on his work was published in 1980 and a more substantial one was written by curator Isobel Crombie and published in association with his major retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria
National Gallery of Victoria
The National Gallery of Victoria is an art gallery and museum in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest and the largest public art gallery in Australia. Since December 2003, NGV has operated across two sites...
in 1989.
Personal life
From 1948 to 1957 he was married to Patricia TuckwellPatricia Lascelles, Countess of Harewood
Patricia "Bambi" Lascelles, Countess of Harewood is an Australian violinist and fashion model.-Life and career:Patricia Elizabeth Tuckwell was born in Melbourne, the daughter of Charles Tuckwell and his wife, Elizabeth and an older sister of Barry Tuckwell...
(sister of Barry Tuckwell
Barry Tuckwell
Barry Emmanuel Tuckwell AC, OBE , is an Australian horn player who has spent most of his professional life in the United Kingdom and the United States.- Early life and education :...
and future wife of Lord Harewood
George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood
George Henry Hubert Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood, KBE AM , styled The Hon. George Lascelles before 1929 and Viscount Lascelles between 1929 and 1947, was the elder son of the 6th Earl of Harewood , and Princess Mary, Princess Royal, the only daughter of King George V of the United Kingdom and...
, 1st cousin to Queen Elizabeth II). Their son Michael Shmith, a senior writer with The Age
The Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...
newspaper, was born in 1949.
External links
- Pictures at Culture Victoria
- Melbourne post-war photography State Library of Victoria, Australia