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of the ‘Aboriginal Stockman’ taken on the Canning Stock Route in 1942 was being published for the first time,
he was taking the sombre portrait of ‘Paddy King of Ord River’ against the background of his country. Neither
this photograph or others like ‘The Ration, Wave Hill’, or ‘The Gurindgi Stockmen’s Camp, Wave Hill’, which
documented the harsh realities of Aboriginal life on the pastoral stations were published for some years. Poignant’s
photographs of Aborigines which found a market in magazines like AM were those that portrayed them as happy
mission Aborigines or emphasised the exotic aspects of their culture—for instance his ‘Cockatoo Totem Man,
Melville Island.’
Back in the Territory in 1951, while working as an assistant to the Life magazine photographer, Fritz Goro,
Poignant overflew the Liverpool River area in Arnhem Land, and learnt of plans to establish a government station
there. Believing that this would make a profound change in the lives of the people, he obtained permission to go
there. In 1952, after many delays, and with the hot season already approaching, he and three Goulburn islanders,
Lamilami, Winungoj and Little Mangkudja, were dropped by Derna on the west bank of the Liverpool River, near
its mouth. He later recalled that ‘I quickly sensed a change in our relationship—I was a guest in their country.’
There was a freshwater well at Nakalarramba and within a short time some 60 people from the Kunibidji, Maung
and Kunwinjku on the west bank, and the Nakkara and Gorrgoni on the east bank were encamped there. Contrary
to official opinion about what to expect, a rich traditional life was soon in full swing, and towards the end of his
stay a Rom—a ceremony of diplomacy—was performed because ‘somebody had come to photograph the people.’
This self-defined assignment was probably Poignant’s most important work.
Poignant was picked up by mission boat and taken to Milingimbi where he photographed a children’s story.
Raiwalla (who a decade earlier had been attached to Donald Thomson provided the storyline and Beulah Lowe,
the teacher, translated it. First published as Piccaninny Walkabout (1957) it pioneered the form of the photographed
narrative children’s story; it won the Children’s Book of the Year Award and a UNESCO commendation for
promoting understanding between peoples. It was redesigned and republished as Bush Walkabout in 1972.
A selection from the main body of his Arnhem Land work was exhibited in the group show, ‘Six Photographers’,
held in Sydney in 1955 and a number of the photographs were reproduced in F D McCarthy’s Australia’s Aborigines
(1957), but interest in his work done in Arnhem Land was limited. Poignant continued to make educational films;
his filming of the kangaroo for the Department of the Interior won first prize in the children’s section at Venice,
Italy, in 1954 as ‘Down in the Forest’.
In 1956, he returned to Europe, where until his death in 1986 he worked with his wife, Roslyn, from London
as a base, at first filming for the British Broadcasting Corporation and then working as a freelance photojournalist.
Thereafter he returned to Australia only irregularly. Together the Poignants made several more children’s stories.
In 1982, the first retrospective exhibition of his work was curated by Gael Newton for the Art Gallery of New South
Wales. It subsequently toured the majority of Australian states, London and several cities in the United Kingdom.
In 1986, a portfolio of his early work was included in ‘Aspects of Perth Modernism’, curated by Julian Goddard.
In 1988, ‘Some Connections’ was shown at the Royal Society, London, and ‘Axel Poignant—Australia—Land and
People’, was shown in Stockholm, Sweden; Roslyn Poignant curated both.
Poignant’s close association with the Northern Territory took place in the immediate post Second World War
decade. Working mainly on self generated assignments, he set out to document not only a way of life that was
beginning to pass, such as the last police patrol by camel in 1945 or the old prospector who lived on in the
abandoned mine office at Arltunga in 1946, but also the new ventures such as Tuit’s Tours and the Wildman River
safari. But it is in the great many aerial views he took on Connellan Airways flights that perhaps best epitomise
his personal response to the land itself. One of the first of these images to gain wide currency was ‘The Artesian
Bore, Gordon Downs’, first published in Fortune Magazine in 1951 to signify Australia’s wealth. Poignant was one
of several artists and writers drawn to the Territory immediately after the Second World War as a locus for their
explorations of the national psyche.
M Harpley, ‘Axel Poignant’, in D Bromfield (ed), Aspects of Perth Modernism 1929–1942, 1986; L Lamilami, Lamilami Speaks:
An Autobiography, 1974; H L LeGuay (ed), Australian Photography, 1978; H Missingham & A Poignant, New Directions in Photography,
1941; G Newton, Silver and Grey, 1980, Axel Poignant, 1982; A Poignant, Bush Animals of Australia, 1948, Piccaninny Walkabout, 1957,
The Improbable Kangaroo and Other Australian Animals, 1965, Animals of Australia, 1967, Bush Walkabout, 1972 & 1974; A Poignant &
R Poignant, Kaleku, 1972, Children of Oropiro, 1976; O Zeigler, Australian Photography 1947, 1947.
ROSLYN POIGNANT, Vol 2.
POLICE BOB: see ARRARBI
POLICEMAN JACK: see KWALBA
POPE, CUTHBERT JOHN (1887–1959), was born at Tring, Hertfordshire, England, on 2 March 1887, son
of the Reverend A F Pope and his wife Katherine, nee Rose. He was educated at Winchester and served on
HMS Britannia as a Naval Cadet from 1902 to 1903. Until 1914 he had various postings, including HM Ships
Euryalus, Fantome and Torch. In Euryalus Pope first served on the Australian station in 1904–05. In January 1914,
Pope was loaned to the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) for duty at the Naval College and other shore service.
In October 1914, he went back to sea as navigation officer on HMAS Sydney and held that post when Sydney
destroyed the German merchant cruiser Emden in November of that year. Pope married Leslie Grant, daughter of
Grant Cooper, in September 1918.
After five years on loan from the Royal Navy, Pope transferred as a Lieutenant Commander to the RAN in
March 1919.