Black, White + Colour

Photography/Biography Book Review: Brian Rope

Black, White + Colour - A Biography of Mervyn Bishop

Text © Tim Dobbyn 2025

Publisher: Ginninderra Press

ISBN Standard edition: 9781761097089

ISBN International edition: 979-8-9921572-0-8

207 pp

Book cover (featuring School Bus Yarrabah, 1974 – Mervyn Bishop)

This illustrated biography of Mervyn Bishop - Australia’s first indigenous professional photographer and treasured artist - provides an intimate portrait. Well researched and clearly written, it has many examples of his fine images as well as other relevant illustrations.

Mervyn on the old Brewarrina bridge, 2019, Tim Dobbyn

Bishop fell in love with photography as a boy of 12 in his hometown of Brewarrina. Serendipitous contact with some white journalists led to a job at the Sydney Morning Herald when just 17. He says his photography is based in the newspaper world.

Closing of pub, Glebe, 1967, Mervyn Bishop

Lionel Rose, world champion bantam weight boxer before departing to the USA to defend his title, Sydney, 1968, Mervyn Bishop

One of his best-known images is Life and Death Dash which caught the anxiety and haste of a religious sister carrying a tearful boy into hospital. He hurried back to the Herald-Sun offices after taking this image to process it. However, their tabloid - the Sun - did not use it. But it is in this book.

Life and Death Dash, Sydney, 1971, Mervyn Bishop

Later, Bishop entered it in the 1971 Australian Press Photographer of the Year Award and won, receiving a medallion and AUD$2,000. But he never received the customary pay increase the Herald had given to other Award winners. This book provides a lot more information, including Bishop’s own view that he had faced a glass ceiling in that workplace.

Disillusioned, Bishop moved to Canberra as a government photographer. In that role, he took an iconic photo of Gough Whitlam pouring earth into the hands of traditional owner Vincent Lingiari. All adult Australians well know the story, the image and an equally iconic song which refers to the event. Again it is in the book.

A further well-known image, Cousins, Ralph and Jim, shows the universal joy of skipping school. Wearing school uniforms, the boys are rowing a boat on the Barwon River. They had decided it would be better to be with Mervyn who was visiting Brewarrina than to go to school. This delightful photo is accompanied here by a detailed story, revealing just how thoroughly the book’s author, Tim Dobbyn, has explored his subject’s life story.

Woman in wheelchair, Wilcannia, 1988, Mervyn Bishop

Dobbyn is a former journalist who started at Australian Associated Press in 1981 before moving to the United States in 1987 to work for Reuters. After taking a break from daily journalism, he worked freelance jobs before starting work on this biography in 2018.

NADOC 86 Exhibition of Aboriginal and Islander Photographers, Aboriginal Artists Gallery, Sydney, 1986, William Yang

 

In 1993, significant Australian-Chinese photographer William Yang set off with Bishop to explore the relationship of Aboriginal people with the Barwon River but decided Bishop’s personal story was of greater interest. In 2003 the Sydney Opera House arranged for these two photographers to create a show for its annual showcase of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and artists. The book provides a detailed description of difficulties experienced and overcome as they created the exhibition.

After returning to Sydney, Bishop was eventually befriended by the arts scene, leading to his first solo exhibition in 1991. Sadly this victory was clouded by the death of his wife on the day of the opening. Dobbyn tells us that Bishop enjoys his current status in the art world but is irritated by artistic analysis of his work.

While often celebrated for chronicling the rising visibility of Indigenous Australians, Bishop is also proud of what he calls his “Whitefella pictures”. He carved his own path, deftly navigating the Black and White worlds of post-war Australia. The book says he has had an unadorned approach to portraiture, with no subject losing any dignity “in the presence of the humble man from Brewarrina.”

Body painting for the Marayarr Murrukundja ceremony, Indonesia, 1993, Mervyn Bishop

Bungaree: The Showman, 2012, Mervyn Bishop

 
The book is dedicated to the first inhabitants of Australia, stating their knowledge and art should be a source of pride and wonder to all Australians. This white Australian couldn’t agree more. Anyone thinking otherwise should, if possible, take a look at the superb indigenous artworks in the 5th National Indigenous Art Triennial: After the Rain, the Artistic Director of which is Tony Albert, Girramay/Yidinji/Kuku-Yalanji peoples, one of Australia’s foremost contemporary artists. It’s at the National Gallery of Australia until 26 April 2026, then will tour nationally.

This review is also available on the author's blog. And in the April 2026 issue of the Australian Photographic Society's online magazine 'The Printer'.

Max Dupain - A Portrait

Non-fiction Book Review | Brian Rope

Title: Max Dupain - A Portrait

Author: Helen Ennis

Publisher: Harper Collins

Helen Ennis, author of this portrait of Max Dupain, one of Australia’s most famous photographers, has previously written numerous other books including an acclaimed biography of Dupain’s first wife Olive Cotton. I have no doubt this almost identically long new book also will be highly regarded.

Ennis starts this book with a 1984 staged photo of Dupain by Melbourne photographer John Gollings, describing it as an “irreverent homage to a dominant figure in Australian photography” and using it to argue Dupain was “obviously determined to exercise as much control as possible over the terms of his own participation” despite appearing vulnerable. 

The author then describes the three worlds of Dupain – his domestic situation, his work, and his world of “his own creation.” Three things he sought to keep separate throughout his life. In the discussion of this there are a few observations I found myself immediately relating to. Another Australian photographer David Moore, one of Dupain’s long-term friends, is quoted as saying about him “he needed to photograph like he needed to breathe.” I would say the same about many people (including myself) – whether their passions are photography, sport, gardening or anything else.

Ennis also tells us that Dupain’s cousin Lucille thought his photography was a way of escaping from what was going on in the world. And that he, himself, saw his creative task as being to get to the essence of things. She also quotes from a foreword to Dupain’s 1948 monograph written by Hal Missingham, then Director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, “Whatever he is photographing there is the same penetration of essentials.”

Those observations by Lucille Dupain and Hal Missingham both ring absolutely true for me. Being creative with their photography is the thing which truly motivates many people. No matter how good their documentary photos, their traditional landscapes, or the portraits taken for paying customers, their real joy comes from creativity during those times when they conceive an idea and then seek to produce artworks in response to that concept.

Ennis shares with her readers some unpublished advice Dupain himself prepared for graduating photography students. Drawing on personal experience, he clearly expressed his view they would have to photograph such things as lousy furniture, industrial complexes, brides and babies to earn sufficient money, because it wasn’t possible to live on “art” photography. However, the author’s book goes on to show and speak favourably about Dupain’s commercial photography as well as his artworks.

Amongst those of Dupain’s images reproduced in the 500+ pages, there are shots of his mother Ena (drying dishes), father George (in his library) and his wives (Olive Cotton and Diana Illingworth). There are some of his paid advertising pieces, beaches and beach culture, nudes, flowers and more. As Ennis discusses the images, we learn about photographers Dupain emulated, the “great creative minds” who most inspired him, his relationships with models, his interest in surrealism, his use of darkness to create mystery, his hatred of war, and the interweaving of his life and his art. There is just so much covered providing, as Ennis intended, a detailed and fascinating portrait of her subject.

Max Dupain - Evening wear advertisement for David Jones (Zara Gaden, Francis Bradford and Douglas Channel), 1938, National Gallery of Australia, purchased 1984

Max Dupain - Jean with wire mesh, c. 1935, National Gallery of Australia, purchased 2006

Max Dupain - Silos through windscreen, 1935, National Gallery of Australia, purchased 1983

There are some famous photos included, including Flight of the spectres made when he was just 21, and which very much impressed another high-profile photographer, Harold Cazneaux. Sunbaker, an impromptu shot of a friend taken in 1938 but not publicly exhibited until 1975, is his most well-known portrait and probably Australia’s most iconic image.

Max Dupain - The Flight of the Spectres, bromoil, 1932, National Gallery of Australia, purchased 1979

Max Dupain - Sunbaker, c. 1938, National Gallery of Australia, purchased 1976

Near the end of the book there is another portrait of Dupain - taken in 1991, just seven years after the Gollings one at the start of the book. This latter image is by another well-known Australian William Yang who also says Dupain sought to assert his control over the session, seemingly to project vitality whilst the resultant image actually reveals a “clearly unwell man.”

In her concluding words Ennis talks about Dupain idolising rare individuals who could rise up and create something extraordinary and poses the question of whether he had done so. She tells us he suspected he was not one of the exalted few, but rather an ordinary man with an exceptional talent. Obtain a copy and read this fascinating book, then decide for yourself.

This review is also available on the author's blog here.