Lot 45

The Estate of Axel Poignant, Melbourne

6 Photographers, David Jones' Art Gallery, Sydney, 30 May - 6 June 1955 (another example)
Australian Photography: A Contemporary View, Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney, 1979 (another example)
Three Years On: Acquisitions 1978-1981, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney 15 October - 1 December 1981
Axel Poignant: Photographs 1922-1980, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 17 July - 29 August 1982, cat. no 34 (another example)
Axel Poignant: Photographs 1922-1980, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 20 September - 24 October 1982, cat. no. 34 (another example)
Axel Poignant: Photographs 1922-1980, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 13 December 1982 - 30 January 1983, cat. no. 34 (another example)
D'un Autre Continent: l'Australie, la Reve et le Reel, Musee d'Art Modern de la Ville de Paris, Paris, 4 October - 4 December 1983 (another example)
Seeing is Believing - The Art in Photography, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 13 December 1985 - 19 January 1986 (another example)
Four Photographers, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2 June - 19 August 1990 (another example)
Photographs from the Collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 30 March - 9 May 1993 (another example)
Federation: Australian Art and Society 1901-2001, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 8 December 2000 – 11 February 2001 (another example).
Australian Postwar Photodocumentary, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney 12 June - 8 August 2004 (another example)
Face to Face: An Exhibition of Portrait and Figurative Photography from the Albany Regional Gallery Collection, S. H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, 29 January - 6 March 2005 (another example)
Candid Camera: Australian Photography 1950s-1970s, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 28 May – 1 August 2010 (another example)

Newton, G., Silver and Grey - Fifty Years of Australian Photography 1900-1950, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1980, pl. 96 (illus., another example)
Newton, G., Three Years On: A Selection of Acquisitions 1978-1981, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1981, pp. 67, 84, 80, cat. no. 34 (illus., another example)
Newton, G., Capon, E., Missingham, H., Axel Poignant: Photographs 1922-1980, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1982, p. 39, cat. no. 74 (illus., cover, another example)
Ennis, H., Masterpieces of Australian Photography, Twentieth Century Photography, Josef Lebovic Gallery, Sydney, 1989, p. 182, 183, cat. no. 325 (illus., another example)
Federation: Australian Art and Society 1901 – 2001, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2000, p. 62 (illus., another example)
Bullock, N., Australian Postwar Photodocumentary, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2004, unpaginated (another example)
Peel, R., Photography: Art Gallery of New South Wales Collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2007, pp. 189, 194, 201, 207 (illus., another example)
Robinson, J., Candid Camera: Australian Photography 1950s – 1970s, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 2010 (illus., cover, another example)

Other examples of this print are held in the collections of National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane; and National Library of Australia, Canberra.

One of Axel Poignant's best known images, 'The Swagman', was made in 1954 (1) probably while working in the arid country of western New South Wales. (2) He was travelling with wife Roslyn on the Barrier Highway between Cobar and Wilcannia when they stopped to talk with a swagman pushing his heavily laden bicycle. The bike had no chains; it was a cart for carrying his swag.

The man told them his name was George Meredith and that he was working his way from Paroo to Wilcannia and then Menindee in Western NSW, a distance of 750 kilometres. He expected it would take him several months. They noted the bedrolls, billy cans and waterbag hanging from the frame and that there was a box of books strapped to the handlebars.

Although it is not known when the image was first published or exhibited, it became very popular from the time it was included in Poignant's 1982 retrospective at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. It was also used on the cover of the catalogue. The captions identifying George Meredith were supplied by the Poignants for the exhibition.

Roslyn Poignant wrote of how Axel had climbed onto the platform on roof of their Fiat van with his Rollieflex to take several images of Meredith facing the very long flat road ahead. (3) Two surviving contact sheets include close up and frontal images of Meredith. However Poignant marked up only a few for printing including the now iconic image from the car roof.

No other images of Meredith are known to have been printed or published by Poignant. His emphasis was on the mage of the swagman walking alone into the wide landscapes of Australia.

Meredith was no shabby dishevelled outback Australian swagman of the type depicted in words and images from the late 19th century until the 1960s. These itinerant workers travelled from place to place in search of seasonal work. Even if no paid work was available many people provided modest rations and a place to camp overnight. There is a lot of literature on the 'sundowners' as they were known. Swagman were still a common sight in the 1950s but their numbers were in decline. (4)

George Meredith is a small thin older man, neat and well dressed with a broad brim hat in good nick. He wears a warm vest and long sleeved shirt. His rolls, bedding and pillows are clean and bright; a metal cat face at the rear of the bike may have had reflector eyes to alert drivers to his presence. His boots are solid and pants clipped around them.

The unpublished close up images of Meredith in Poignant's contact sheets show he is clean shaven with a neat white moustache. He is possibly in his 60s. It is quite likely he had been at a property recently and knew where the next stop would be for his personal presentation to be so well maintained. His provisions would last only a few days without replenishment.

When he took the images of George Meredith, Axel Poignant had been be a photojournalist since the mid 1930s and would have been aware of the classic documentary images of the American west during the depression which often featured lone itinerants on the endless desert roads. In Western Australia in the 1930s and early 1940s he had portrayed hard working drovers, miners, prospectors and the people he met along the Canning stock route in 1942.

Axel Poignant's published image of the swagman could be any quest into the unknown and many journeys and paths people choose to travel. It remains an Australian icon.
(excerpt, Newton, G., Axel Poignant, 1906 - 1986, The Swagman 1954)

(1) The Swagman has been dated 1953/54; but in a 2010 article by Roslyn Poignant it was dated 1954.
(2) 'Leading Photographer Films Mines and Flying Doctor Service', Barrier Daily Truth (Broken Hill), Friday 30 April 1954, p. 4
(3) Roslyn Poignant. 'The Swagman's After Image'. Photofile 35, 2 (1992): 6-11 and 'The Photographic Witness', Photogenic Papers John Richardson (ed.)
(4) For a personal account by a swagman see "Duke" Tritton, 'Once a Jolly Swagman', Walkabout vol. 26 n.12, 1 Dec 1960, pp. 22-27