Frank Hurley, photographed c.1914
James Francic "Frank" Hurley, OBE (99.1 October 1885 – 16 January 1962) was an Australian photographer, film maker and adventurer. He participated in a number of expeditions to Antarctica and served as an official photographer with Australian forces during both world wars.
His artistic style produced many memorable images but he also used staged scenes, composites and photographic manipulation for which he has been criticised on the grounds that it diminished the documentary value of his work. [1]
Biography
Hurley was the third of five children to parents Edward and Margaret Hurley and was raised in Glebe, a suburb of Sydney, Australia.[2] He ran away from home at the age of 14 to work on the Sydney docks. When he was 17 he bought his first camera, a 15 shilling Kodak Box Brownie which he paid for at the rate of a shilling per week. He taught himself photography and set himself up in the postcard business.
Antarctic expeditions
At the age of 23 in 1908, Hurley learned that Australian explorer Douglas Mawson was planning an expedition to Antarctica; fellow Sydney-sider Henri Mallard in 1911 recommended Hurley for the position of official photographer to Mawson's Australasian Antarctic Expedition, ahead of himself[3]. Hurley asserts in his biography that he then cornered Mawson as he was making his way to their interview on a train, using the advantage to talk his way into the job. Mawson was persuaded, while Mallard, who was the manager of Harringtons (a local Kodak franchise) to which Hurley was in debt, provided photographic equipment. The Expedition departed in 1911, returning 1914.
Hurley was also the official photographer on Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition which set out in 1914 and was marooned until August 1916; Hurley produced many pioneering colour images of the Expedition using the then-popular Paget process of colour photography. He later compiled his records into the documentary film South in 1919.
Wartime photography
Chateau Wood,
Ypres, 1917 by Frank Hurley
In 1917, Hurley joined the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) as an honorary captain and captured many stunning battlefield scenes during the Third Battle of Ypres. In keeping with his adventurous spirit, he took considerable risks to photograph his subjects, also producing many rare colour photographs of the conflict. His period with the AIF ended in March 1918. Hurley also served as a war photographer during World War II.
Photographic holdings
Photographs by Hurley of the Antarctic are held by a number of institutions. Notable collections include the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, National Library of Australia, Canberra, Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge, Royal Geographical Society, London, and the South Australian Museum, Adelaide.
National Library of Australia
The collection contains 10,999 glass negatives, plastic negatives, colour transparencies, lantern slides, and stereographs that have been fully catalogued and digitised.
The collection covers photographs of Hurley's trips to Antarctica; as official photographer during World War I 1914-1918; later travels in the Middle East and Egypt; as official photographer during World War II 1939-1945; Papua and New Guinea; Australian scenery, industries and social life and customs.
Related photographic prints can be found in the Hurley Collection of Photographic Prints.
The collection contains 1000 photographic prints. 44 prints have been catalogued and digitised.
This album contains 60 gelatin silver photographs by Hurley, all of which have been catalogued and digitised.
The collection contains 259 photographic prints, all of which have been catalogued and digitised.
References
- ^ for an account of the conflict between Hurley and the war correspondent Charles Bean, see Gough, Paul. "‘Exactitude is truth’: representing the British military through commissioned artworks". Journal of War and Culture Studies Volume: 1 | Issue: 3 December 2008 Page(s): 341-356 (ISSN: 1752-6272), and also the excellent discussion of this, and Hurley's use of montage in some of his Antarctic imagery, in McGregor, Alasdair (2004). Frank Hurley: A photographer's life. Camberwell: Viking. ISBN 0-670-88895-8.
- ^ McGregor (2004) p 8
- ^ while Hurley records his approach to Mawson differently in his memoir, the fact of this introduction via Mallard was established by David P. Millar in "From snowdrift to shellfire : Capt. James Francis (Frank) Hurley, 1885-1962" Sydney : David Ell Press, 1984. (ISBN 0908197594)
Writings by Hurley
- Hurley, Frank (19--?). "Australia, in natural colour". s.l: John Sands. http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn947737.
- Hurley, Frank (19--?)). "Manly: South Pacific playground in natural colour". Sydney: John Sands. http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn3538155.
- Hurley, Frank (19--?). "South Australia: in natural colour". Adelaide: John Sands. http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn166892.
- Hurley, Frank (1915). "Exhibition of unique photographic pictures taken during the Australasian Antarctic Expedition: also other photographic studies". London: The Fine Art Society. http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn2055826.
- Hurley, Frank (192-?). "Catalogue of an exhibition of war photographs by Capt. F. Hurley, late official photographer with the A.I.F., held at the Kodak Salon, Sydney". Sydney?: s.n.. http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn944908.
- Hurley, Frank (192-?). "Gems of Jenolan". Sydney: New South Wales Government Tourist Bureau. http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn2324685.
- Hurley, Frank (1924). "Pearls and savages: adventures in the air, on land and sea in New Guinea". New York: Putnam's Sons. http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn2324685.
- Hurley, Frank (1925). "Argonauts of the south, by Captain Frank Hurley ... being a narrative of voyagings and polar seas and adventures in the Antarctic with Sir Douglas Mawson and Sir Ernest Shackleton; with 75 illustrations and maps". New York; London: G.P. Putnam's sons. http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn643709.
Writings About Hurley
External links
