The Peripatetic Theme 1972

colour photograph

2021.83

Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Anouk

Hulme

in memory of Etta and Emmanuel

Hirsh, 2021

About the artist and their work:

Mark Strizic (1928-2012) was born in Berlin and migrated to Australia via Croatia in 1950. His early interests were in painting and science, but in 1957 he took up photography as a career and documented life in Melbourne through the lens of his camera. Strizic is widely known for his iconic images of Melbourne after World War II, depicting the city as it shifted from its Victorian past towards modernity.

Strizic was the first photographic artist to be given a solo exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria (1968) and was also the first photographer to be acquired by the newly formed National Gallery of Australia in 1973. Strizic had a strong interest in both art and architecture and took portraits of the leading artists of the time. In his career Strizic undertook industrial, advertising, architectural and portrait photography, with commissions for government, companies, and private individuals as well as the United Nations. Strizic taught alongside artists such as John Cato and later at the Preston Institute of Technology and the Melbourne College of Advanced Education. He held his first exhibition at Gryphon Gallery, Melbourne University and a major exhibition at Realities Gallery, Toorak (1974). In the 1970s Strizic moved towards fine art practice and began manipulating his images through colourisation, cropping and embraced installation. Using bold colour saturation, he transformed images of urban ugliness into something more. Mark Strizic: A Journey in Photography, a retrospective exhibition organised by Monash Gallery of Art, showcased 50 years of his work and in 2007 the State Library of Victoria acquired Strizic’s entire archive of over 5,000 photographic negatives and slides.