Mervyn Bishop (born July 1945) is an Australian news and documentary photographer. Joining The Sydney Morning Herald as a cadet in 1962, he was the first Aboriginal Australian to work on a metropolitan daily newspaper and one of the first to become a professional photographer. In 1971, four years after completing his cadetship, he was named Australian Press Photographer of the Year. He has continued to work as a photographer and lecturer.
Early life and education
Mervyn Bishop, a Murri man,[1] was born in July 1945[2] in Brewarrina in north-west New South Wales. His father, "Minty" Bishop, had been a soldier and shearer, and was himself born to an Aboriginal mother and a Punjabi Indian father. In 1950, "Minty" gained an "official exemption certificate which permitted 'more advanced' Aborigines to live apart from mission blackfellas in post-war Australia". This enabled the family to live among "ordinary" people in Brewarrina. The catch to this certificate was that the exempt Aboriginal people were expected to "sever their ties with their old culture".[1][3] or 1963,[4]
By high school he had started "chronicling the family with a camera – first his mother's Kodak620 and, then a 35mm Japanese camera he bought for £15".[5] He moved to Dubbo when he was 14 to finish his high school at Dubbo High School.[citation needed]
Bishop began his career as a cadet photographer with The Sydney Morning Herald in 1962, the first Aboriginal photographer hired by the paper,[1] becoming the first Aboriginal person to work on a metropolitan daily newspaper and one of the first to become a professional photographer.[4] During four years of his cadetship, he completed a Photography Certificate Course at Sydney Technical College.[7] In 2004, he remained the only indigenous photographer to have been employed by the paper.[8]
He won the Nikon-Walkley Australian Press Photographer of the Year in 1971 with Life and Death Dash (1971), a photograph which appeared on the front page of the Herald in January 1971, depicting a nun rushing to get help for an Aboriginal child.[9][7][10] Artist Jonathan Jones wrote in 2014: "In this startling image, composition, contrast and Aboriginal social commentary combine. It is a classic example of photojournalism that has since transgressed its original context and come to insinuate the impact of religious missions within Aboriginal Australia and, in particular, on the Stolen Generations".[6]
From 1974 to 1980, he worked as the Department of Aboriginal Affairs staff photographer. Some of his most enduring work came from this period, as he visited Indigenous communities and documented "the first flush of an idealistic era when land rights, equal wages and government-funded aid seemed to presage a new dawn for Aboriginal Australians".[8]
It was during this time, in 1975, that 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. This photograph[11] has been seen as capturing "the symbolic birth of landrights".[1]
In 1991 he had his first solo exhibition, 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. A book titled In Dreams was published to accompany the exhibition.[7]
He produced a one-man performance piece, Flash Blak, in the vein of a William Yang slide show to music and written and directed by Yang, for the 2004 Message Sticks Festival at the Sydney Opera House.[5] His aim in the show was to delve "into his family's history to illuminate a wider story about Aboriginal life in the latter half of the 20th century".[5]
Recognition and awards
A photographic portrait of Bishop hangs in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, created by Greg Lee.[6]
1991–2001: In Dreams: Mervyn Bishop Thirty Years of Photography 1960–1990, initially curated by Tracey Moffatt, at the Australian Centre for Photography in Sydney and touring[18] for around 10 years[14]
^ abcde"Mervyn Bishop". Art Gallery of NSW. Retrieved 1 June 2024. [From] Jonathan Jones in Tradition today: Indigenous art in Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2014
