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Women Photographers 1900–1975: A Legacy of Light celebrates the wide-ranging photographic practices of more than eighty women artists working between 1900 and 1975. Featuring prints, postcards, photobooks and magazines, the exhibition explores the role of photographers as image-makers, and the ways in which women artists create an image of themselves, of others, of the times – from images of the women’s suffrage movement at the turn of the twentieth century, through to the women’s liberation movement and beyond. From Melbourne to Tokyo, Paris to Buenos Aires, the exhibition showcases the works of trailblazing artists such as Berenice Abbott, Lola Álvarez Bravo, Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, Imogen Cunningham, Mikki Ferrill, Sue Ford, Christine Godden, Ponch Hawkes, Annemarie Heinrich, Ruth Hollick, Florence Henri, Kati Horna, Germaine Krull, Tina Modotti, Lucia Moholy, Toyoko Tokiwa, Yamazawa Eiko and many more.

The exhibition reflects a recent collecting focus on celebrating the contributions of women artists of the early twentieth century in the NGV Photography Collection. Featuring portraiture, photojournalism, landscape photography, photomontage, experimental avant-garde imagery and more, Women Photographers 1900–1975: A Legacy of Light presents the diverse work of women photographers against the backdrop of significant social, political and cultural events.

Opening in November 2025, the exhibition coincides with the fifty-year anniversary of International Women’s Year 1975, which established the United Nations’ annual celebration of International Women’s Day.

Women Photographers 1900–1975: A Legacy of Light
until 3 May 2026
NGV, Melbourne, Australia
See: https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/women-photographers-1900-1975/

See: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2025/nov/30/women-photographers-1900-to-1975-a-legacy-of-light-in-pictures

Image: Gertrude KASEBIER, The gargoyle (c. 1900), platinum photograph, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of the Herald & Weekly Times Limited, Fellow, 1979. PH27-1979

Well after a long gestation period the new exhibition I've been curating at the State Library of New South Wales has opened. Arranged chronologically Shot covers the years 1845 to 2022 and is a major retrospective of photography in Australia. With over 400 photographs by 200 photographers there should be content that is of interest for this group particularly in the early years with some rare photocrayotypes, Australia's oldest extant photo (a daguerreotype by Goodman), and rare Paget plates from Shackleton's expedition by Frank Hurley. Given the desktop version went online this week I felt it was a good time to share with you all. It includes examples of photographic formats from the inception of photography to the present and will be up until November 2024. 

Below is an excerpt from the introduction panel ...
This is the first exhibition to comprehensively review the breadth of the photographic archive held at the State Library of NSW — one of the largest, most diverse and significant in Australia. The two million photographs held by the Library represent tens of thousands of stories collectively forming a unique pictorial history of the past 175 years in Australia. The exhibition explores some of these threads — from the earliest surviving photograph in Australia to examples of nearly every format used since the inception of photography in 1839.

The exhibition includes works by some of Australia’s most acclaimed photographers and shines a light on works and formats often considered to be on the periphery of photographic practice. Arranged chronologically, we have aimed to include at least one photograph to represent each year between 1845 and 2022. The images include the work of over 200 press, amateur and street photographers; printers and commercial studios. This exhibition captures only a thin slice of the collection, but these 400 works convey some of the rich rewards to be gained by examining the archive as a whole. We hope this approach allows space to contemplate the myriad stories they represent.
https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/shot

Geoff Barker, 2024