Hello patrons!

I hope you love this month’s postcard as much as I do. It’s already in the post and on its way to your letterbox.

Max Dupain was one of Australia’s most significant black and white photographers, perhaps best known for his iconic photograph, ‘The Sunbaker’.

However, we are lucky that Max Dupain also made several trips to Newcastle and the Hunter Valley to photograph, amongst other things, BHP, the Australian Rope Wire Works, the new Sydney to Newcastle expressway, and visits to Maitland and Nelson Bay.

The March postcard celebrates the Newcastle Show – established by the Newcastle Agricultural, Horticultural and Industrial Association in 1905. But first, they had to build the showground.

The Newcastle AH&I was formed in 1899 and gained a land lease at Broadmeadow from the Crown.

“The area at the time was swamp land and useless to anybody. The association had to clear the ground of scrub, to plough it level and raise it. It also erected pavilions and other improvements at a total cost of 2813 pounds.”

 

Max Dupain believed that black and white photography was ‘simple and direct’ and that colour was ‘restricting in its objectivity, leaving nothing for individual interpretation’.

My thanks to the State Library of NSW for permission to reproduce this fabulous photograph from the Newcastle Show in the 1940s.

And thank you to YOU for helping to support my passion project, Lost Newcastle. Together, we also help the Vera Deacon Regional History Fund at the University of Newcastle, which is about to accept new interns to help ensure our local history is preserved and shared.

See you at Newcastle Show for a ride on the dodgems and a pluto pup!

Carol