LONGUEVILLE, AUSTRALIA.- Australian photographer David Moore, 75, died. He died a couple of fdays before a retrospective opened at the National Gallery of Australia. David Moore was born in Sydney in 1927 and educated at Geelong Grammar School, Victoria. Moore discovered photography at the age of 11 when a relative presented him with a Coronet box camera. Later, during his teenage years, his father, artist and architect, John D. Moore gave him a book of Edward Weston’s photographs of California and the American West.
Moore began working as a professional photographer in the studio of Russell Roberts in 1947. The following year, he went to work for Max Dupain for a period of three years. In 1951 he left Australia to work overseas. He worked as a freelance photojournalist in London for seven years for publications including Life, Time and Fortune magazines. He also worked for the Observer before returning to Australia in 1958.
As a photographer, he has made an important contribution to the visual arts in Australia. His photographs are in the collections of major institutions both in Australia and overseas, including the National Gallery of Australia, the New York Museum of Modern Art, and le Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. The Art Gallery of New South Wales mounted a retrospective exhibition of his work in 1988 and in 1993-94 the State Library of New South Wales exhibited Sydney Harbour – 50 years of photography .
His most famous works include photographs such as Sydney Harbour Bridge (1947), Redfern Interior (1949), Newcastle Steelworks (1963), European Migrants Arriving in Sydney (1966) and President Johnson and Prime Minister Holt at Canberra Airport (1966).
Publications by Moore include David Moore, Richmond, Vic, Richmond Hill Press, 1980; Australia: image of a nation, 1850-1950, Sydney, William Collins, 1983; The Australian functional tradition, Fitzroy, Vic, Five Mile Press, 1988; David Moore, Australian photographer, Sydney, Chapter and Verse, 1988; An Australian place: the Upper Hunter Valley, McMahon’s Point, NSW, Chapter and Verse, 1991; Image of New England: Armidale, Walcha, Uralla, Dumaresq and Guyra, Armidale, Armidale Development Corporation, 1992; Sydney Harbour, McMahon’s Point, NSW, Chapter and Verse in association with the State Library of New South Wales Press, 1993; Railways, relics and romance: the Eveleigh Railway Workshops, Sydney, NSW, Sydney, Caroline Simpson, 1995; To build a bridge: Glebe Island, Sydney, Australia, Neutral Bay, NSW, Chapter and Verse, 1996 and David Moore, the unseen images: an exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Neutral Bay, NSW, Chapter and Verse, 1997.
