Max Dupain's Iconic Beach and War Photography in New Exhibition

A new exhibition showcases the work of Australian photographer Max Dupain, featuring iconic images from his career spanning the 1930s to the 1980s. The display includes his famous beach photographs such as 'Sunbaker' (c 1938), which depicts his friend Harold 'Hal' Salvage at Culburra beach, and 'Forms at Bondi' (1939), capturing a couple on Bondi Beach. Dupain's interest in physical culture, fostered by his gymnasium-owning father, is evident in his beach photography. The exhibition also highlights his war work, including his role as an accredited camouflage officer with the RAAF in 1941 and his documentation of the Civil Constructional Corps (CCC) erecting camouflage nets in 1943. Dupain's personal photographs from this period include scenes from Alice Springs and the Stuart Highway to Darwin, where he arrived in 1943. Additionally, the exhibition features his long-term project photographing the Sydney Opera House construction from 1958 to the early 1970s. Notable portraits include 'Jean with mesh shadow' (1936), featuring his frequent model Jean Lorraine, and a self-portrait with a Hasselblad camera taken in Vanuatu in 1988. The exhibition also includes 'Meat Queue' (1946), which Dupain considered his favorite photograph, capturing life in Sydney in the 1940s. His work was included in the '6 photographers' exhibition at David Jones Gallery in Sydney in 1955.