Alpine Art Photographic Exhibition
The Edwin G. Adamson Collection
EDWIN G ADAMSON was a photographer, an extrovert and an adventurer. Working in both his Collins Street studio and the High Country, he photographed the Australian bush passionately, foregrounding his other adventurous passions: skiing, fly-fishing and car trials. 
He used his journalistic skills in combination with his photography to cover stories that promoted adventure tourism, long before it was fashionable. At the same time, for more than fifty years, he was graphically recording history in the Australian Alps.
Highly competitive, he won a place in the Victorian ski championships in 1933, 1935, and 1937 - at the ripe old age of 42.
Much of his photography shows the juxtaposition of natural and man-made elements. In the natural world which he so loved, he documented great snow seasons, cattlemen's huts, ski chalets, harbours, rivers and lakes, often with people thoroughly and actively engaged in them. Some of his favourite subjects were trees and livestock, and the place of farming and grazing in the Australian psyche. In his commercial photography he documented the evolution of fashion and industry, especially motor vehicles.
Portraiture was a prominent part of his work. In 1920, Edwin G Adamson took a full-length portrait of the then Prince of Wales on his visit to Australia. An acknowledgement from the Prince thanks him for 'the excellent photograph.'
Exhibition of his work at the highly selective London Salon of Photography in 1929 demonstrated his acceptance as a meritorious, international professional.
Arthur Streeton, artist and art critic, favourably mentioned Edwin G Adamson's entry in the International Exhibition of Photography at the Athenaeum Gallery in Melbourne in 1933.
The National Gallery of Victoria, which holds and periodically exhibits some of his work, counted him amongst the ten best Australian photographers.
In the 1980's fifty excellent prints from the Edwin G Adamson collection were exhibited at Galleries around Victoria, after a very successful launch at the Silver K Gallery in Armadale, Victoria. Quite coincidentally the name of this gallery echoes the Silver K award presented to him for his skiing prowess by the prestigious Kandahar Club in Murren, Switzerland in 1930.
This successful series of exhibitions showed that Australian photography was beginning to be appreciated as art.
The fine prints exhibited here are made from the original large-format negatives using the latest technology to retain both the original qualities of the photograph and the intent of the artist.
His son, Edwin V C Adamson, was trained by Edwin G Adamson in the darkroom and from an early age often appeared in landscape photos as the obligatory 'figure for interest'. It is his interpretation of his father's work that informs this exhibition.
This exhibition touring and is in contant demand from other museums.
