A Legacy of Light: Women Photographers Shine at the NGV

“Light was considered the medium that permits photography. But for me it became the main subject: the protagonist of my photography,” Ilse Bing famously said in the 1930s. Almost a century later, light is the protagonist of NGV’s new exhibition Women Photographers 1900–1975: A Legacy of Light. The show features more than 300 works by 80 pioneering image-makers from Melbourne to Tokyo, Paris to Buenos Aires. Like Bing, these women harnessed light to tell stories of culture, bodies, technology and liberation. 

Women Photographers is part of a global shift to address gender imbalance in the presentation of 20th-century art. Curator of photography Maggie Finch hopes the exhibition will “expand the histories of photography”, and the collection is certainly expansive – spanning realist portraiture, landscape photography and experimental avant-garde imagery. Many pieces are being exhibited for the first time, newly acquired with support from the Bowness Family Foundation and Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family.

There are two rooms to explore: the first is dedicated to experimental photography and the second to documentary photography. Your journey begins at the turn of the century with archival materials from the suffragettes, who used photography to spread information. From there, enter the cultural hotspots of the ’20s – Paris, Vienna and Berlin – where shifting gender norms gave rise to the “new woman”. This section includes works from the Bauhaus School of Design, which pushed the limits of photography and cemented the camera as a marker of modernity. 

Next, move into the ’30s and ’40s and encounter Olive Cotton’s Teacup Ballet, a masterpiece of light and shadow. Women at this time were often “working with what was available”, Finch says of Imogen Cunningham’s striking Agave Design, which was taken in her own backyard during a period she devoted to raising her children. Nearby, artists document the machine age with both excitement and unease: Germaine Krull uses unusual angles on metal structures to defamiliarise the viewer, while Berenice Abbott records a rapidly changing Manhattan.  

A section of intimate portraits highlights how women photographers subverted the male gaze. See Lee Miller’s intimate shot of Man Ray, and Dora Maar’s images of Pablo Picasso. Self-portraits also appear, alongside a collection of nudes, including a portfolio by Krull and mesmerising light-driven works by Lotte Jacobi, who used swinging lights to create rhythm and movement. The finale of this first room is Bing’s fractured self-portrait, using a mirror to “disrupt the image” and challenge ideas of perception.

The second room opens with family-focused imagery, such as Melbourne photographer Ruth Hollick’s portraits, where “subjects considered appropriate for a woman” became a site for innovation and commercial success, Finch explains. Nearby, Inez McPhee’s documentation of the Melbourne Women’s Walking Club is displayed, followed by a large section dedicated to Hedda Morrison’s photographs from her time in Beijing. Additional social documentary work includes Eslanda Cardozo Goode Robeson’s images from her travels in Africa and powerful shots from the Farm Security Administration Project of the ’30s, which employed Dorothea Lange and Marjorie Collins. 

As the timeline progresses, you’ll encounter street photography by Diane Arbus, Heidi Levitt and Mikki Ferrill, accompanied by a quote from Lisette Model: “The camera shutter made me believe in the crucial role of chance and the tremendous power of the instant.” And then you reach the ’70s, when photographers embraced new technology and a new wave of feminism. Much of this work “elevat[es] everyday life”, according to Finch, and focuses on domestic spaces. Highlights include Sue Ford’s portraits from Photobook of Women and Porch Hawkes’s images of Melbourne’s gritty yet hopeful streets.

Women Photographers 1900–1975: A Legacy of Light is a celebration – of photography; of the innovation, creativity and resilience of women; of the powerful “instant”; and of light. 

The exhibition runs until May 3, 2026. Find out more and book tickets at ngv.vic.gov.au.

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