Mervyn Bishop
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Mervyn Bishop (b. 1945), is from Brewarrina in north-west NSW. He is one of Australia's first professional Aboriginal photographers, and one of the country's pre-eminent news photographers.
He began his career as a cadet photographer with The Sydney Morning Herald in 1962. He also studied photography at Sydney Technical College.
In 1971 he won the Nikon-Walkley Australian Press Photographer of the Year for Life and Death Dash, a photograph of Sister Anne Burn carrying a child (who had taken an overdose) into hospital which had appeared on the front page of the Herald in January of that year.
From 1974 he worked as the Department of Aboriginal Affairs staff photographer.
He shot the iconic photograph of Gough Whitlam pouring soil into the hand of Gurindji traditional owner, Vincent Lingiari, at the handover of the deeds to Gurindji country at Wattie Creek in 1975.
He captured the spirit of the times, whether it was documenting Sydney's anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in 1969, or exposing the Third World living conditions in Aboriginal communities as Australia celebrated its Bicentenary in 1988.
He returned to the Herald in 1979, before becoming a freelance photographer in 1986, working for such agencies as the National Geographic Society.
Mervyn, or Merv, completed further studies and lectured in photography at Tranby Aboriginal College, the Eora College and at the Tin Sheds Gallery at the University of Sydney.
In 1991 he had his first solo exhibiton, In Dreams: Mervyn, Thirty Years of Photography 1960 to 1990, at the Australian Centre for Photography. Originally curated by Tracey Moffatt, it went on to tour for over 10 years.
In 2000, he was awarded the Australia Council's $50,000 Red Ochre Award, through its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board.
He has produced a performance piece, Flash Blak, in the vein of a William Yang slide show to music, for the Message Sticks Festival at the Sydney Opera House and worked as a stills photographer on Phillip Noyce's Rabbit Proof Fence.
[edit] Exhibitions
- 1991, Images of Black Sport, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney
- 1991, Her Story: Images of Domestic Labour in Australian Art, S.H. Ervin Gallery
- 1992, Cultural exchange with the Chinese Photographic Society and Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
- 1993, Aratjara: Art of the First Australians1994
- 1993, Urban Focus: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art from the Urban Areas of Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
- 1998, Retake: Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Photography, National Gallery of Australia
- 2003, New View: Indigenous Photographic Perspectives, Monash Gallery
[edit] External References
Melbourne Age article [[1]]
