NGV International presents 'Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light' exhibition until May 3
NGV International in Melbourne has opened 'Women Photographers 1900-1975: A Legacy of Light,' a major exhibition featuring over 300 works by more than 70 artists. The show spans from 1900 to 1975, covering suffrage movements, global conflicts, decolonization, and second-wave feminism. Diane Arbus's portraits appear alongside Dora Maar's surrealist works, while Lee Miller's photography crosses from New York fashion studios to wartime Europe. Dorothea Lange's iconic 'Migrant Mother' photograph anchors the exhibition, contextualized within her documentation of the Great Depression. Lola Álvarez Bravo's 'Las Lavanderas' transforms domestic labor into dynamic composition, and Olive Cotton's 1935 'Teacup Ballet' abstracts everyday objects. Ilse Bing's 1931 self-portrait explores identity through modernist techniques, and Ponch Hawkes captures 1970s Melbourne activism and communal living. Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore's 1930 artist book 'Aveux non Avenus' challenges gender conventions through photography and performance. The exhibition includes recent acquisitions to the NGV collection and coincides with the 50th anniversary of the United Nations' International Women's Year in 1975. Works by Barbara Morgan, Trude Fleischmann, and Lillian Bassman are also featured. The exhibition runs until May 3, 2025.
Key facts
- Exhibition features over 300 works by more than 70 women photographers
- Covers the period 1900-1975 including suffrage, wars, and feminism
- Includes Diane Arbus, Dora Maar, Lee Miller, and Dorothea Lange
- Features Dorothea Lange's 'Migrant Mother' from 1936
- Shows Lola Álvarez Bravo's 'Las Lavanderas' and Olive Cotton's 'Teacup Ballet'
- Includes Ilse Bing's 1931 self-portrait and Ponch Hawkes's 1970s activism photos
- Presents Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore's 1930 artist book 'Aveux non Avenus'
- Exhibition runs until May 3, 2025 at NGV International in Melbourne
Entities
Artists
- Diane Arbus
- Dora Maar
- Lee Miller
- Dorothea Lange
- Lola Álvarez Bravo
- Olive Cotton
- Ilse Bing
- Ponch Hawkes
- Claude Cahun
- Marcel Moore
- Barbara Morgan
- Trude Fleischmann
- Lillian Bassman
- Florence Henri
- Germaine Krull
- Tokiwa Toyoko
- Lucia Moholy
- Man Ray
- Florence Owens Thompson
- Sibylle Binder
- Barbara Vaughn
- Martha Graham
- Simon Cartwright
- Berenice Abbott
- Imogen Cunningham
- Mikki Ferrill
- Sue Ford
- Christine Godden
- Annemarie Heinrich
- Ruth Hollick
- Kati Horna
- Tina Modotti
- Toyoko Tokiwa
- Yamazawa Eiko
- Pablo Picasso
- Nimet Eloui Bey
- Aziz Eloui Bey
- Gisèle Freund
- Simone de Beauvoir
- Jean-Paul Sartre
- Vita Sackville-West
- Virginia Woolf
- James Joyce
- Léonor Fini
- Jacqueline Lamba
- André Breton
- Leonora Carrington
- Remedios Varo
- Cindy Sherman
- Mary Ellen Mark
- Valie Export
- Abigail Solomon-Godeau
- Marcus Bunyan
- Maggie Finch
- Mina Moore
- May Moore
- Nellie Stewart
- Eleanor Stewart Towzey
- Gertrud Arndt
- Yamawaki Michiko
- Selina Martin
- Lizzie Casual Smith
- Christabel Pankhurst
- Mary Leigh
- Ethel Snowden
- Gertrude Kasebier
- Alfred Stieglitz
- Madame d'Ora
- Dora Kallmus
- Josephine Baker
- Coco Chanel
- Kitty Hoffmann
- Lotte Jacobi
- Niuta Norskaya
- Alfred Arndt
- Wera Waldek
- Rudolf Kicken
- Elsa Thiemann
- Hannes Meyer
- László Moholy-Nagy
- Walter Gropius
- Max Dupain
- Lucy Crosbie Morrison
- Elsa Schiaparelli
- Grete Stern
- Ellen Auerbach
- Grace Lock
- Ruth Bernhard
- William Randolph Hearst
- Margaret Bourke-White
- Henry Luce
- Laure Albin Guillot
- Bea Maddock
- Heather George
- Aleksandr Rodchenko
- Varvara Stepanova
- Florent Fels
- Lou Tchimoukow
- Eugène Atget
- Elizabeth McCausland
- Patrick Pound
Institutions
- NGV International
- National Gallery of Victoria
- United Nations
- Harper's Bazaar
- Josef Lebovic Gallery
- NGV Foundation
- Bowness Family Fund for Photography
- Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
- Aesthetica Magazine
- National Gallery of Victoria (NGV)
- Shaw Research Library
- Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family
- Bowness family
- Joy Anderson
- Lee Miller Archives
- Copyright Agency, Australia
- Art Blart
- State Library of Victoria
- Latrobe Collection
- Women's Social and Political Union
- Toye & Co.
- Bauhaus
- Galerie Kicken Berlin
- Pictorial Photographers of America
- Photo-Secession
- Neue Galerie
- MoMA
- Museum of Modern Art
- Graphische
- Atelier d'Ora
- Schwestern Flöge
- Wiener Werkstätte
- Chełmno concentration camp
- Farm Security Administration
- Fortune
- Life
- Time Inc.
- New Masses
- Deakin
- Faculty of Arts and Education, Deakin
- Hatje Cantz
- Bowness Family Foundation
- Professor Wang Gungwu
- Shaw research Library
- Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona Foundation
- First Working Group of Constructivists
Locations
- Melbourne
- Australia
- New York
- United States
- Paris
- France
- Europe
- Nipomo
- California
- Vienna
- Austria
- Sydney
- Mougins
- Cannes
- Cairo
- Egypt
- Mexico
- London
- United Kingdom
- Tavistock Square
- Frankfurt
- Germany
- Tokyo
- Japan
- Buenos Aires
- Argentina
- NGV International
- 167 Collins Street
- Chartres House
- 165 Collins Street
- Moonee Ponds
- New Zealand
- Wellington
- Auditorium Building
- England
- Nottingham
- Bauhaus, Dessau
- Weimar
- Erfurt
- Probstzella
- Darmstadt
- Michaelerplatz
- Côte d'Azur
- Ardèche
- Ginza
- Montana
- Fort Peck Dam
- Columbia River basin
- Coney Island
- Manhattan
- Empire State Building
- Broadway and Park Row
- Park Avenue and Thirty-Ninth Street
- Zehlendorf
- Berlin
- Mexico City
- Soviet Union
- USSR
- Amsterdam
- Rotterdam
- Marseille
- Saint-Malo
- Parkes
- Switzerland