Max Dupain (1911-1992) was an Australian modernist photographer. Dupain is known for his iconic images of the Australian landscape, beach culture, and industrial architecture. His work is considered a significant influence on Australian photography, and he is regarded as one of Australia’s most influential photographers of the 20th century. Dupain’s photographs are characterised by their strong composition, use of light, and emphasis on form and shape. However, he is best known for his photographs of Sydney’s Bondi Beach and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, considered some of the most iconic images of Australian culture.

He was born Maxwell Spencer Dupain on 22 April 1911 in Ashfield, Sydney and was the only child of Sydney-born parents, George Zephirin Dupain and Thomasine Jane (Ena). His father pioneered the physical fitness movement in Australia and founded the Dupain Institute of Physical Education Sydney in 1900. 

Early Years

Dupain attended Ashfield Preparatory and Sydney Grammar schools. However, he did not thrive academically and left school without completing the Leaving Certificate (known as Year 11 now). His uncle Clarence Farnsworth, an amateur photographer, gave him his first camera at 13. In 1928 he joined the Photographic Society of New South Wales and presented his early works in the predominant soft-focus Pictorialist style in the society’s exhibitions. Pictorialism is an approach to photography that emphasises the beauty of subject matter, tonality, and composition rather than the documentation of reality.

His entries in the society’s 1932 Interstate Exhibition of Pictorial Photography garnered praise from the eminent photographer and critic Harold Cazneaux.

Photography Career

In 1930, Dupain began a three-year apprenticeship with photographer Cecil Bostock. He also took evening art classes at Julian Ashton’s Sydney Art School and East Sydney Technical College. As a result, by 1933, his images emphasised geometric form, outlined and accentuated by sharp hard light rather than the soft romanticised effects favoured by pictorialists. Then, in 1934, with financial support from his family, he opened a small studio with a shared darkroom at 24 Bond Street in Sydney. The timing was exceptionally fortunate as Australia was emerging from the Depression, and the demand for advertising, society, and celebrity photography was growing.

It wasn’t long before Dupain outgrew the small studio and moved to larger premises in the same building. In 1937 he employed Geoffrey Powell, followed by Damien Parer in 1938. Then, in 1934, photographer Olive Edith Cotton joined his studio as a general assistant. They married in 1939 in a Methodist service at her home, but the marriage did not last, and they separated in August 1941 before divorcing in February 1944.

Modernist Photography

The support of publisher Sydney Ure Smith was instrumental in launching Dupain’s career. Smith featured Dupains work in Art in Australia in 1935 and invited him to review J. T. Scoby’s book on surrealist photographer Man Ray for The Home magazine. By the late 1930s, Dupain was established as a leading modernist photographer. One whose work responded to and reflected the realities of contemporary life. Dupain experimented with different techniques, from photomontage to solarisation, developing a style characterised by the dramatic use of light. 

Throughout his career, Dupain’s preferred medium was black and white photography. He photographed widely diverse subjects, from still lifes and landscapes to cityscapes. Dupain was also one of the first Australian photographers to focus on studies of the nude, both male and female and passionately advocated modernist photography. 

Fame and Influence

From the late 1930s, he played an essential role as a commentator in photography magazines and later as a photography critic for the Sydney Morning Herald. He was also a founding member of the Contemporary Camera Groupe (CCG) in 1938. The CCG  was formed to counter the prevailing conservatism of Australian photography. His self-declared heroes shaped his Romantic outlook in literature, music, and the arts: Beethoven, Shakespeare, D. H. Lawrence, and Llewellyn Powys. The book Creative Effort by  Norman Lindsay was particularly influential.  

Dupain also greatly admired the work of photographers Man Ray, George Hoyningen-Huene (whom he met in Sydney in 1937), and Margaret Bourke-White.

War Service

In 1941 his studio partnered with the respected photo-engraving firm Hartland & Hyde Pty Ltd and relocated to Clarence Street, Sydney. From 1942 to 1945, Dupain was seconded in a civilian capacity as a camoufleur (a person skilled in camouflage techniques) with the Royal Australian Air Force. He visited Darwin, New Guinea, and Goodenough Island, off the northeast coast of Papua New Guinea. His work entailed taking photographs revealing the effectiveness of different kinds of camouflage.

His wife, Olive Cotton, ran the studio in his absence. In late 1945, Dupain joined the Commonwealth Department of Information and travelled across Australia, taking photographs for the government’s publicity campaign aimed at attracting migrants to post-war Australia.

He took the image “meat queue” during his tenure with the department. Post-wartime, due to shortages, queues were everywhere. For buses, vegetables, fruit and meat. Dupain came across a queue of women at a butcher shop on Pitt Street waiting to exchange coupons for meat.

Post War Years

On 25 November 1946, now divorced from Olive Cotton, Dupain married Diana Palmer Illingworth, a clerk, at the District Registrar’s Office, Chatswood. From 1953 until his death, the couple lived at The Scarp, Castlecrag. Their home was designed by the modernist Australian architect Arthur Baldwinson.  Surrounding the house was a native garden cultivated by Dupain.

His interest in photography changed in the postwar years, and Dupain took a documentary approach.   Although he scorned the “artificiality” of studio work, he continued working in advertising. However, he focused on architectural and industrial photography, establishing close working relationships with eminent architects. Dupain was a reluctant traveller. However, he made one trip to Europe in his lifetime. In 1978, he photographed the Australian Embassy in Paris, designed by leading Australian Architect Harry Seidler.

NGA Exhibition

During the 1970s, Dupain, a retrospective exhibition of his work, was held at the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney. The collection introduced his now best-known photograph, Sunbaker, to the public. This image became an icon, defining the typical beach culture, the Australian way of life, and the great outdoors. The exhibition brought Dupain greater recognition. He was represented in all significant public collections in Australia, including Dreams Sensuous and Surreal’s exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia. His work was considered not only art but to have historical value as it also captured wartime Australia in the 1930s.

Later Years

Dupain moved to a new studio in Artamon in 1971, working there for the next twenty years. His second wife described him as a ‘complex character’, as he was not a social person. Instead, Dupain was intense, single-minded, and disciplined. Dupain believed that the viewer must be emotionally and intellectually involved in the images and devoted his life to achieving excellence.

 Dupain became an honorary fellow of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects in 1980 and was appointed OBE for outstanding services to photography in 1981 and AC in 1992. Maxwell Spencer Dupain died, age 81, of heart disease on 27 July 1992 at his home Castlecrag. He was survived by his wife Diana,  daughter Danina and son Rex and was cremated in a private service.

Following his death, his archive was divided into two: the art and personal negatives remained with his family, and the commercial negatives were consolidated into the Max Dupain Exhibition Negative Archive. These now reside at the State Library of New South Wales.