GROUP M opening tonight at New North Gallery

Opening 6pm Thursday 7 October
7-30 October 2010
New North Gallery
15a Railway Place Fairfield Vic 3078.
Opposite Fairfield railway station.
PH: 9018 3081

Guest speaker on opening night is Merle Hathaway, past executive officer of the Public Art Galleries Association of Victoria. John Crook, Albert Brown and Richard Woldendorp will also be present.

Developing out of the 1950s amateur photographic club the Moggs Creek Clickers, Group M was a forceful advocate for the exhibition and acceptance of social documentary photography in the 1950s and 1960s in Melbourne.

Between 1959 and 1966 they mounted an annual exhibition titled “Photovision”, attracting entries from photographers worldwide. These were shown at the Museum of Modern Art, founded in Melbourne by John and Sunday Reed.

Their 1963 exhibition “Urban Woman” documented the lives of Australian women from childhood to old age. The collection, represented by several images in this current show, was shown in Melbourne and afterwards in Sydney, Adelaide and Perth. In 1968 it formed part of Australia’s cultural contribution to the Mexico Olympics. In the mid-60s, with some younger group members conscripted to the Vietnam war, four Group M members exhibited “A Time to Love”. The works by John Crook, Albert Brown! , George Bell and Roy McDonald, depicted bushfires, old people, handicapped children and the Lake Tyers Aboriginal mission. Images from that collection are included in this exhibition.

John Crook’s archive was lost in the Ash Wednesday bushfires of 1983. A reminder of the fragility of the important documentary work done by this group.

One of Group M’s most important contributions to cultural life in Victoria was their significant involvement in discussions leading to the formation of the Photography Collection at the National Gallery of Victoria. At a time when the legitimacy of the medium was not fully recognised or appreciated by the arts Establishment, the quiet persistence of Albert Brown, John Crook and their colleagues was rewarded when the Photography Department opened at the NGV in 1967 and the value of photography as an art medium was established beyond further doubt.

Group M members included :
Albert Brown, G! eorge Bell, John Bolton, John Crook, Fred Mosse, Roy McDonald, Cliff Restarick, Richard Woldendorp, Harry Youlden.

New North Gallery would like to thank Albert Brown and John Crook for all their enthusiastic help in mounting this timely retrospective exhibition which honours the work of a group of passionate and committed Australian photographers. We stand upon the shoulders of giants.

GROUP M IN CONVERSATION.
THE THREE SURVIVING MEMBERS, JOHN CROOK, ALBERT BROWN and RICHARD WOLDENDORP ARE GIVING A FLOOR TALK AT NEW NORTH GALLERY.
Saturday 9th October 2:30PM.