Laurence Le Guay

Laurence (Laurie) Craddock Le Guay (25 December 1916 – 2 February 1990), was an Australian fashion photographer.

Biography

Laurence Craddock Le Guay was born on 25 December 1916 at Chatswood Sydney, of locally born parents Charles Sidney Le Guay, company secretary, and Doris Alma Le Guay, née Usher.

Photography

Le Guay's schoolboy hobby of photography[1] was encouraged by Harold Cazneaux[2] and from 1935, at age eighteen, he worked as an assistant at Dayne portrait studio, before opening his own studio in Martin Place in 1937, to concentrate on illustrative[3] and fashion photography.[4] He joined the Pictorialist Sydney Camera Circle in 1940 and exhibited with them at various national and international photographic salons. He began producing photomontage work of a more Surrealist style around the contemporary theme of the Machine Age and incorporating the heroic nude, most significant being The Progenitors (1938). Many of these became illustrations in the newly founded Man: The Australian magazine for men.[5][6][7] Consequently, in November 1938 he was invited by Max Dupain and Olive Cotton to join them in forming The Contemporary Camera Groupe with others including Douglas Annand, Harold Cazneaux, Damien Parer, Cecil Bostock and Russell Roberts. The Groupe proclaimed themselves as Modernist, seceding from Pictorialism, and the youngest members were, like Le Guay, commercial photographers. They were inspired by a new image of the body, Australian in that it referred to sun-worshipping beach culture, health and vitality.[8]

War service and later fashion photography
One of Le Guay's photografies on Toulon, after its battle.
Laurence Le Guay (c.1945) Kanana ceremony New Guinea, included in The Family of Man world-touring exhibition

Le Guay enlisted with the Royal Australian Air Force in 1940, serving as a photographer in the Mediterranean (1941–43) and the Middle East (1943–45). Demobilised in Sydney in January 1946, he accompanied artist Robert Emerson Curtis[9] as photographer on the Australian Geographical Society's tour of Northern Australia,[10][11][12] and joined other expeditions, to New Guinea, and the Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition.[13][14] One photograph he shot in New Guinea[15] was included by Edward Steichen in The Family of Man exhibition in New York in 1955, which toured the world to reach the largest audience of any photographic exhibition since.[16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] He, and David Moore, were the only Australian photographers whose work was included in the exhibition.[25]

Le Guay founded Contemporary Photography, the first Australian photographic magazine not published by a photo supply firm,[14] the first issue of which appeared in December 1946.[10] Through it he promoted modernism, abstraction and documentary approaches as an antidote to the Pictorialist style which still predominated in Australia,[26] and which he began to react against during his membership (1940–1953) of the increasingly conservative Sydney Camera Circle.[27] He also taught photography.

He set up a new studio that year in George Street, then in the old Smith's Weekly building, moving, in 1947, to a partnership with John Nisbett on Castlereagh Street. They were among the first in Australia to use outdoor locations[28] for fashion photography.[29] In 1947–48, he produced a film on Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Le Guay continued to be a significant international, and Sydney's leading, fashion photographer throughout the 50s and 60s,[30] rivalling Athol Shmith in Melbourne.[31][32] The Le Guay/Nisbett studio was joined in 1961 by David Mist. Born in London, Mist trained and worked in the UK, so augmented his partners' acquired European élan, and further enlivened the burgeoning local industry.[33]

Contributions to the profession

Though Le Guay's magazine Contemporary Photography folded in 1950 due to his busyness, he continued his interest in writing, editing Australian Photography magazine from 1956 and the annuals published by it; Australian Photography 76 (1977) and Australian Photography - a contemporary view (1978), having closed his studio on Castlereagh Street, Sydney in 1970. With the younger David Moore, for whom he was a mentor, he was a founder of the Australian Centre for Photography in Sydney in 1974. He continued giving lectures, and also took up deepwater sailing.[34]

In 1963 Le Guay was awarded the Commonwealth Medal for his contributions to the profession as photographer, editor, lecturer and member of professional organisations.[14]

He died on 2 February 1990 survived by Ann Warmington, whom he had married 22 July 1948 and divorced in 1967, and one daughter.

Publications
  • Le Guay, Laurence (1949). A Portfolio of Australian photography. H.J. Edwards, Sydney
  • Le Guay, Laurence & Slessor, Kenneth, 1901-1971 (1966). Sydney Harbour. Angus & Robertson, Sydney
  • Le Guay, Laurence & Falkiner, Suzanne (1980). Australian Aborigines : Shadows in a landscape (1st ed). Globe Publishing, Sydney[35]
  • Le Guay, Laurence (1975). Sailing free : around the world with a blue water Australian. Ure Smith, Sydney
  • Le Guay, Laurence (1976). Australian photography 1976. Globe, Sydney
  • Le Guay, Laurence (1978). Australian photography : a contemporary view. J. H. Coleman, Globe Publishing, Sydney

References
  1. Miles, M. (2013). Light, Nation, and Place in Australian Photography. Photography and Culture, 6(3), 259-277. Chicago
  2. Geeves, P., Cazneaux, H., & Newton, G. (1980). Philip Geeves Presents Cazneaux's Sydney, 1904-1934. David Ell Press. Chicago
  3. Lydon, J. (2009). Photography and Australia (review). Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 10(1)
  4. Bonnie English, Liliana Pomazan (2010). Australian Fashion Unstitched: The Last 60 Years Cambridge University Press, pages 7, 65
  5. Kuttainen, Victoria. A Lost Australian Story: Man in the 1930s online at http://www-public.jcu.edu.au/jameskirby/about/image-gallery/JCUPRD1_056518%5B%5D
  6. White, Richard. "The Importance of Being Man." Australian Popular Culture. Ed. Peter Spearritt and David Walker. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1979.
  7. Ray, Greg. "Man Magazine: the Australian Publishing Icon Published by K.G. Murray." Online. http://www.collectingbooksandmagazines.com/man.html.
  8. Crombie, I. L. (1999). Body culture: Max Dupain and the social recreation of the body, c. 1919-1939. University of Melbourne doctoral thesis.
  9. Holder, Jo; Kerr, Joan (2007). "Robert Emerson Curtis Biogrpahy". Design and Art Australia Online (DAAO).
  10. Walkabout, Vol. 13 No. 5 (1 March 1947) : Australian National Travel Association, p.40
  11. Australian Geographical Society (1 April 1947), "CIVILIZATION IN THE SPINIFEX THE STORY OF MOUNT ISA AND HER MINE (1 April 1947)", Walkabout, Australian National Travel Association, 13 (6), ISSN 0043-0064
  12. Paolo Magagnoli , “A Library of Photographs Covering the Entire Continent”: Walkabout Magazine and the Politics of Documentary in Post-War Australia, Photography & Culture, December 2019 13(3):1-28 DOI: 10.1080/17514517.2019.1693878
  13. P. Law, The Antarctic Voyage of HMAS Wyatt Earp, 1995
  14. Obituary, The Sydney Morning Herald Tuesday 06 Feb 1990, p.12
  15. APA Dupont, S. (2012). Raskols (Postcards from the Rim). Chicago Dupont, Stephen. "Raskols (Postcards from the Rim)." (2012).
  16. "'Family of Man' photograph show", The Age, Monday, 16 Feb 1959, p.10
  17. Steichen, Edward; Sandburg, Carl; Norman, Dorothy; Lionni, Leo; Mason, Jerry; Stoller, Ezra; Museum of Modern Art (New York) (1955). The family of man: The photographic exhibition. Published for the Museum of Modern Art by Simon and Schuster in collaboration with the Maco Magazine Corporation.
  18. Hurm, Gerd, 1958-, (editor); Reitz, Anke, (editor); Zamir, Shamoon, (editor) (2018), The Family of Man revisited: photography in a global age, London I.B.Tauris, ISBN 978-1-78672-297-3CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  19. Sandeen, Eric J (1995), Picturing an exhibition : the family of man and 1950s America (1st ed.), University of New Mexico Press, ISBN 978-0-8263-1558-8
  20. The Age, Tuesday, February 24, 1959, p.3
  21. The Age,  Monday, March 16, 1959, p.2
  22. The Age, Tuesday, March 17, 1959, p.2
  23. The Sydney Morning Herald, Tuesday, March 31, 1959, p.13
  24. The Sydney Morning Herald,  Saturday, April 04, 1959, p.13
  25. The Age, Monday 23 Feb 1959, p.2
  26. Rossi, Danielle (1996). "Naturalism and the establishment of photography as an art form in mid-century Australia. Chapter Two: Contemporary Photography Magazine". photo-web. Retrieved 13 January 2021.
  27. O'Connor, Anne (11 November 2020). "History associated with Contemporary Photography within Australia: Contemporary Photography Magazine - Le Guay (1946-1950)". Australian Photographic Society. Retrieved 13 January 2021.
  28. Maynard, M. (2008). The Fashion Photograph: an ‘Ecology’. Fashion as Photograph, 54. Chicago
  29. Eugenie Shinkle (Ed.) (2008) Fashion as Photograph: Viewing and Reviewing Images of Fashion, I.B.Tauris, pps.52-63
  30. Ennis, H. (2004). Intersections: photography, history and the National Library of Australia. National Library Australia. Chicago
  31. McNeil, Peter, 1966- & Karaminas, Vicki & Cole, Cathy, 1950- (2009). Fashion in fiction : text and clothing in literature, film and television (English ed). Berg, New York p.67
  32. Helen Ennis (2004). Intersections: Photography, History and the National Library of Australia. National Library Australia, p.209
  33. AUSTRALIA, I. (2010). FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY. Australian Fashion Unstitched: The Last 60 Years, 59. Chicago
  34. Le Guay, Laurence (1975). Sailing free : around the world with a blue water Australian Ure Smith, Sydney
  35. Bell, D. (1980). Australian Aborigines, Shadows in a Landscape [Book Review]. Aboriginal History, 4, 230. Chicago
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