Cazneaux collection
Collection highlights
Harold Cazneaux's first camera, 1904, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-141166704
Harold Cazneaux (1878–1953) was perhaps Australia's best-known photographer of the early twentieth century. He purchased this camera in 1904, shortly after moving from Adelaide to Sydney, and made photographs of Sydney's streets and waterways.
In 1909 he became the first Australian photographer to exhibit his works in a solo show.
Cazneaux was a master of the pictorialist style of photography, using soft focus to capture scenes that were - and remain - familiar to many Australians in a new light. He was able to find a timeless, extraordinary beauty in the everyday.
Harold Cazneaux's first camera, 1904, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-141166704
Harold Cazneaux (1878–1953) was perhaps Australia's best-known photographer of the early twentieth century. He purchased this camera in 1904, shortly after moving from Adelaide to Sydney, and made photographs of Sydney's streets and waterways.
In 1909 he became the first Australian photographer to exhibit his works in a solo show.
Cazneaux was a master of the pictorialist style of photography, using soft focus to capture scenes that were - and remain - familiar to many Australians in a new light. He was able to find a timeless, extraordinary beauty in the everyday.
Harold Cazneaux, The Bridge Book, 1930, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3400035320
Harold Cazneaux, The Bridge Book, 1930, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3400035320
Harold Cazneaux and Jean Curlewis, Sydney harbour, 1928, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3400035056
Harold Cazneaux and Jean Curlewis, Sydney harbour, 1928, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3400035056
Harold Cazneaux, Canberra : Australia's federal capital, 1928, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3411683566
Harold Cazneaux, Canberra : Australia's federal capital, 1928, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3411683566
Key items in the collection
This collection hosts a range of formats, including:
The personal papers of Cazneaux mostly consist of letters written to him between 1903 and 1953. They include newspapers, journals, publishers and photographic societies as well as correspondence with artists such as Julian Ashton, Hans Heysen, Rayner Hoff, Bertram Mackennal and Margaret Preston. In addition, there are drafts of reviews, articles and broadcasts, papers concerning the Photographic Society of New South Wales, and notes about Cazneaux by Beryl Cazneaux and Sally Garrett.
There are 272 exhibition prints, around 200 working photographs - either experimental or rejected versions - and approximately 4,300 glass negatives, mostly dating from 1904 to 1940.
The subjects of the photographs include old Sydney streets and buildings, Sydney Harbour and Circular Quay, public and commercial buildings, stately homes, the construction and opening of Sydney Harbour Bridge, beaches, surf races, the visits of the Prince of Wales (1920) and the Duke of York (1927), Frensham School, Newcastle steelworks, the Blue Mountains, the Southern Highlands, the Canberra countryside, the Murray River, the Flinders Ranges, sheep mustering, stock routes, gum trees and koalas.
As well as many photographs of children (especially the Cazneaux children), society ladies and wedding parties, there are portraits of well-known artists such as Oscar Asche, Julian Ashton, Hans Heysen, Nora Heysen, Alfred Hill, Rayner Hoff, George Lambert, Lionel Lindsay, Norman Lindsay, Nellie Melba, Yehudi Menuhin, Anna Pavlova and Margaret Preston.
There is also a group of photographs taken by Cazneaux’s son, Harold Cazneaux (1920–1941) at a military camp at Raymond Terrace, New South Wales, in 1940.
In addition to the photographs, the collection contains 6 pen and ink, pencil and charcoal drawings by Cazneaux. They depict buildings and ships and are undated. We also hold the silver medal won by Cazneaux at the Commemorative Salon of Photography in Sydney in 1938.
Among Cazneaux’s publications were:
- Canberra, Australia’s federal capital (1928)
- Sydney Harbour (1928)
- Sydney surfing (1929)
- The bridge book (1930)
- The Sydney book (1931)
- The Frensham book (1934).
About Harold Cazneaux
Harold Cazneaux was born in 1878 in Wellington, New Zealand. His artistic roots ran deep, his father was an English photographer, and his mother was an Australian miniature painter. The family moved to Adelaide in the 1890s, where Cazneaux began honing his craft in his father’s photography studio. He also attended evening art classes, sharpening his design and technical skills.
A passion ignites
In 1904, Cazneaux relocated to Sydney, where he would spend the rest of his life. He managed Freeman & Company’s photography studio and began exhibiting his work, with his first solo exhibition held in 1909. By 1916, Cazneaux co-founded the Sydney Camera Circle, a group dedicated to pushing the boundaries of photography as an art form. Two years later, he left Freeman’s to become a freelance photographer, contributing to prominent journals like Home and Art in Australia. He also wrote columns and published photography books.
Pictorialism and modernism
Cazneaux was heavily influenced by pictorialism, a movement that viewed photography as a form of fine art, much like painting. After seeing an exhibition in 1898 by John Kauffman, a photographer known for his impressionist-style work, Cazneaux became a leader in Australia’s pictorialist movement. He specialized in creating soft-focus images and became an expert in the bromoil process, a technique used to create painterly effects in photographs.
By the 1920s and 1930s, his work began to show elements of modernism, particularly in his striking images of surfers, sunbathers, and the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge. Cazneaux’s photography spanned a wide range of subjects, from portraits of children and society figures to landscapes, cityscapes, and even industrial scenes.
A lasting impact
Harold Cazneaux helped bridge the gap between commercial photography and art, proving that the camera was not just a tool for capturing reality, but also a means of artistic expression. His legacy as a pioneer in Australian photography endures, with his work celebrated for its blend of pictorial beauty and modernist innovation.
Background to the collection
The Library first acquired some glass negatives of Cazneaux in 1956 from his widow, Winifred Cazneaux.
In 1974, 224 prints were donated by their five daughters, Rainbow Johnson, Jean Blundell, Beryl Cazneaux, Carmen Field and Joan Smith.
Further photographs were donated in 1984–85 and in 1991 the five sisters presented about 4000 negatives, mostly on glass, and also a collection of personal papers.
In 1998 Joan Smith donated about 300 negatives of family photographs. Some additional papers were received from Cazneaux’s grand-daughter, Sally Garrett, in 2003.
The photographs of Cazneaux are kept together as a formed collection within the Pictures Collection.
The exhibition prints have been catalogued individually and have mostly been digitised.
The negatives are kept in three series: the main series (151 boxes), J series (1420 items) and the HB (Harbour Bridge) series (390 items). Prints have been made of all the negatives and many have been digitised. There is an item listing for each of the three series.
Prints have been made of the 353 family photographs and they are filed in Album 950.
The drawings by Cazneaux and the medal are also held in the Pictures Collection. Use the papers finding aid.
Significant collections of photographs of Cazneaux are also held in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Mitchell Library (State Library of New South Wales) and the National Gallery of Australia.
This guide was prepared using these references:
- Jack Cato, The Cazneaux story, Australasian photo-review, vol. 59 (12), December 1952, pp. 721–68.
- Cazneaux, the quiet observer, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1994 (introduced by Helen Ennis, with a personal commentary by Phillip Adams).
- Max Dupain (ed.), Cazneaux : photographs by Harold Cazneaux, 1878-1953, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1978.
- Zeny Edwards, Sunlight & shadow: the lifework of Harold Cazneaux, Wild & Woolley, Sydney, 1996.
- Erika Esau, Behind the camera: the family albums of Harold Cazneaux, National Library of Australia news, vol. 10 (2), November 1999, pp. 3–7.
- Lesley G Lynch, Cazneaux, Harold Pierce (1878–1953), Australian dictionary of biography online
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