066 | 4WDTouringAustraliaYoung Maxwell was doing the Modernist thing well before
the German emigres arrived in Melbourne during WWII.
As a 13-year-old Sydneysider he was obsessed with
light and was largely self-taught, eking out any chance he
could to escape the city and shoot in nature. In later years
this passion would see him travel extensively on the bush
tracks of Western Queensland and the Northern Territory.
WWII had a deleterious effect on Sidney Nolan’s
creativity, forcing him to question the idea of any form of
work. Yet, for Max Dupain, who served with the Air Force
in Darwin, WWII saw him value the nature of having some-
thing to do each day where he could express himself.
When he returned to civilian life he gave away his old
meal-ticket job, shooting campaigns for ad agencies,
because “Modern photography must do more than
entertain, it must incite thought and by its clear statements
of actuality, cultivate a sympathetic understanding of menand women and the life they live and create.”
It wasn’t enough for Dupain to cover the landscape, he
believed it was all just a postcard unless there was some
evidence of human interaction, a theory the Australian Na-
tional Library refers to as ‘Vitalism’.
“Dupain was in uenced by the vitalism doctrine, which
held that a transcendent ‘vital force’ exists within living
organisms. In particular, he admired the writings of DH
Lawrence and Norman Lindsay, and the photographs of
Laurence Le Guay. For Dupain, the beach was the obvious
setting to portray physical vitality.
In recent years, Max’s work has been acknowledged
for its trademark compositional brilliance, with Juxtapoz
magazine explaining, “The quality of light mimics his
landscape pictures – sometimes harsh and surreal, with
dream-like subjects and shapes.”Max Dupain
“Sunbaker”, 1937.Culburra, South Coast, NSW
© Max Dupain / National Gallery
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