Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

Above Max Dupain Harold Salvage, Culburra C.1937 Gelatin silver photograph From an album assembled c.1937 by Chris Vandyke Courtesy Jill White and Mrs Joan Vandyke, Sydney Right Max Dupain Manly 1938 Bromoil photograph 34.3 X 30.5cm Gift of Max Dupain 1983 Queensland Art Gallery immediate foreground virtually intrudes into the viewer's space. After Dupain's death in 1992, other questions about Sunbaker surfaced. Such was his status as a national treasure in the last years of his life that the mythical process also extended to possession of the iconic images. Following Dupain's death a radio announcer called for an answer to the mystery of the Sunbaker' s identity. In fact this information was always available but had been regarded as irrelevant, given the generic title of the image. It is a well- known phenomenon to curators that people are always declaring themselves or their relatives to be the actual subjects of well-publicised historic images. And so it was with the Sunbaker. Several callers identified themselves as the wanted man, but Harold Salvage's son John was able to produce proof, including another photograph taken by Dupain from a similarly low angle, showing the handsome Harold with an axe over his shoulder. The face of the 'real' Sunbaker then made the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald on 1 August 1992. A feature by the paper's 'HeritageWriter', Geraldine O'Brien, was announced by a sensationalist headline, 'Exposed: Max's bronzed Aussie Sunbaker was a lilywhite Pom'. Clearly there was such a sense of identification with the Sunbaker that the discovery that he was an immigrant was a public disappointment. However, Harold Salvage was quite an appropriate model for the Sunbaker. He was a builder by trade and had migrated from England in the 1920s. Like Dupain he was athletic and the two men shared a passion for rowing and the Australian beach life.7 A solitary, snapshot-sized contact print of the monograph version of Sunbaker II is stuck with no special reverence in an album compiled by Dupain's close friend Chris Vandyke, who was present on the same holiday. The undated album appears to cover at least two south coast trips made by Dupain's circle of friends around 1937-39. The rest of the scenes in the album are typical of the larking about and relaxed activities of beach holidays. However, it also contains more studied compositions including a side view of Salvage showing his face complete with stubble, seemingly taken around the same time as Sunbaker. Here the particularity of the face and the languid reclining pose reveal only too well why the mix of grace, vigour and anonymity works so well in Sunbaker. The monograph shows a dark print of Sunbaker II dated 1940, indicating that the reproduction had been made from an earlier exhibition print (but the exhibition has not been traced). No vintage prints of either version have appeared despite the widespread publicity about the image.8 It is quite possible that the date '1940' means nothing more than that particular print was made in 1940. Otherwise it is surprising that Dupain should be mistaken about the date of his holiday, given that the years from 1937 to 1940 were marked by major events in his personal life and the world at large. He was married in 1939 to his first wife, the photographer Olive Cotton;9and it was on another south coast holiday in 1939 that Dupain and his friends learned of the outbreak of war. By 1941 Dupain was enlisted in the camouflage unit of the RAAF. His war service was continued with work from 1945 to 1947 on assignments across Australia for the Department of Information which was already focused on postwar recovery and immigration. There was little time for exhibiting in these years. The dark tone of the monograph reproduction of Sunbaker II leads me to see the image as more surreal, perhaps even oppressed by the threat of war. This introspective subject suggests a link back to the motif of the body of the sacrificed Anzac — a feature of much First World War art. However, Dupain's image does not conform to the plethora of nationalistic imagery based on the sunlit beaches and strapping tanned lifesavers which was employed strategically from the 1920s to define Australian identity and to encourage immigration and tourism. The sunbaker does not beckon, stride or salute. There is no hint of the collusion between regimented elements in popular modem design and the marching militarism of the 1930s. It certainly belongs to the imagery 144 BROUGHT TO LIGHT: Australian Art 1850-1965