Adelaide, where Harold began working as a retoucher in 1897. In 1904, he moved to Sydney and began work at Freeman’s studio; five years later he held his first solo exhibition, which was also the first solo photographic exhibition in Australia. In 1914 he won £100 in a competition organised by Kodak; he put the money toward the house in Roseville from which he was to work for most of his professional life. In 1916 he founded the Sydney Camera Circle. He was the leading photographer for the Home magazine from the early 1920s onward, and his photographs of Sydney over a number of decades have become key images of aspects of Australian history. He exhibited with the London Salon of Photography from 1911 and was elected a member of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain in 1937.
Florence Milson is thought to have taken photography lessons from Harold Cazneaux, who nominated her in 1920 as the first (and only) female member of the Sydney Camera Circle.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
Harold Cazneaux's portraits of influential Sydneysiders included Margaret Preston and Ethel Turner, both important figures in the development of ideas about Australian identity and culture.
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