Wolfgang Sievers 9780642276933, 0642276935

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Contents
Setting the Imagination to Work
A Matter of Freedom: Berlin to Melbourne
The Modern Age
Endnotes
Germany
Australia
Architecture
Industry
The Worker
Mining
Further Reading
Selected Exhibitions
Index

Citation preview

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Sulphuric Acid Plant, Electrolytic Industries, Risdon, Tasmania, 1959 (detail) gelatin silver photograph; 49.9 x 39.5 cm nla.pic-an24430022

National Library of Australia

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Published under the auspices of the Morris West Trust Fund Published by the National Library of Australia Canberra ACT 2600 © National Library of Australia 2011

Books published by the National Library of Australia further the Library’s objectives to interpret and highlight the Library’s collections and to support the creative work of the nation’s writers and researchers. Every reasonable endeavour has been made to contact the copyright holders. Where this has not been possible, the copyright holders are invited to contact the publisher. This book is copyright in all countries subscribing to the Berne Convention. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Text Helen Ennis

Author: Ennis, Helen.

Publishing Manager Susan Hall

Title:

Publisher’s editor Michaela Forster

Wolfgang Sievers / Helen Ennis.

Edition: 1st ed. ISBN:

9780642276933 (pbk.)

Subjects: Sievers, Wolfgang, 1913-2007. Photography--Australia. Photography, Artistic. Photography, Industrial. Dewey Number: 779.092

Designer Andrew Rankine Printed by Australian Book Connection

Acknowledgements

I first met Wolfgang Sievers in 1982 when researching the acquisition of a collection of his photographs for the National Gallery of Australia (at that time I was Curator of Photography at the Gallery). Some years later, we collaborated on the exhibition The Life and Work of Wolfgang Sievers, which opened at the Gallery in 1991 and subsequently toured Australia. I was therefore delighted to have the opportunity to return to his extraordinary oeuvre and would like to thank Paul Hetherington, formerly of the National Library of Australia, for the invitation to write on the Wolfgang Sievers Photographic Archive in the Library’s collection. Linda Groom, Curator of Pictures, was responsible for the acquisition of the Sievers archive and I have greatly appreciated her enthusiasm for, and commitment to, Sievers’ photography. I am very grateful to Susan Hall, Manager, Publications and Production, for her dedication to this publication. In addition, staff in the Pictures branch provided their usual invaluable support. My thanks also go to the editor, Michaela Forster, and the designer, Andrew Rankine; Andrew’s uncluttered, elegant design is very much in sympathy with Sievers’ work.

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I would like to thank all those who have shared their views on Sievers’ photography, including his long-term friend, Robert Imhoff. My colleagues Anne Brennan, Head, Art Theory Workshop and Gordon Bull, Head, Australian National University School of Art supported my work on this project. Finally, thanks to my sons, Jack and Ben, who helped in different ways, and my partner, Roger Butler, who commented on the essay with his characteristic care and insightfulness. Helen Ennis December 2010

Note on the images The illustrations in this book are a combination of exhibition prints and small prints that Sievers made as records of his various assignments.

Foreword

The National Library of Australia has long collected photographs that depict Australians at work. As a necessary balance to the images of Australia’s pivotal events and great leaders, past and present curators of the Library’s Pictures Collection have gathered thousands of photographs of workers—bearded miners with their tools in the 1870s, call-centre operators at their desks in the twenty-first century, and people in every kind of job in between. The Wolfgang Sievers Photographic Archive, with its linked themes of work, industry, mining and architecture, is the largest contributor in the Pictures Collection to this record of Australian working life. At more than 65 000 photographs, it is the largest formed photographic collection held by the Library. In the mid-1990s, Pictorial Librarian Barbara Perry began negotiations with Sievers and successfully presented the case for the Library’s first purchase from him—500 photographic prints of industry and industrial workers. By the time I arrived in the Pictures branch in 1997, these photographs had impressed everyone who had seen them, and the agreed Sievers acquisition strategy could be summed up in a single word: more. Even then, before I realised that every photograph retained by Sievers had survived its creator’s rigorous self-criticism, and that he threw out any that did not meet his exacting standards, the potential total involved in ‘more’ was a sobering thought.

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The Library’s relationship with Sievers developed through a series of steps. We made four more purchases of batches of photographs between 1997 and 2001. During this process, I was privileged to visit Sievers more than once to look through his prints in the light-filled studio on the top floor of his Sandringham home. On these occasions, I and another Pictures staff member, who shared the work of selecting and listing the latest batch for acquisition, went through the ceremonies and courtesies that Sievers extended to his many visitors—we were served tea at the table in his comfortable kitchen and invited to lunch at his favourite restaurant with a view over Port Phillip Bay. The Library’s interest in his entire archive gradually emerged, as did our realisation that it would take a substantial offer to secure it. During these visits, when we scrutinised Sievers’ print collection and eventually his massive transparency and negative collection, I don’t think we were fully aware of the extent to which we, and our institution, were being scrutinised in turn. I wore, as always for such visits, my best suit and one day added a new silver necklace of which I was rather proud. Sievers complimented me on the necklace, then asked who the maker was. When I confessed I did not know, he gave me what can only be described as a scolding. Fortunately, he quickly forgave me; either that or the impressive statistics of the Library’s cold-storage facility for negatives and transparencies saved the day. We completed negotiations to purchase the full archive by early 2002 and received it in instalments over the next two years. Although the process of organising the collection and housing it in the right preservation conditions took only a few months, cataloguing and digitisation will take many years. More than 10 000 of the Sievers photographs are now fully catalogued, with the images available through the Library’s online catalogue. More are added every year. The catalogue provides an excellent pathway for anyone who wants an image of underground working conditions at Broken Hill or Coolgardie, the history of the pulp and paper industry in Tasmania, or the Griffin architecture of the Capitol Theatre in Melbourne. However it needs a book such as this, and the perceptive and expert eye of Helen Ennis, to provide a sense of the entire collection and the compelling skill of Sievers as a creator. Linda Groom Curator of Pictures

Contents

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Acknowledgements v Foreword vii

Setting the Imagination to Work Photographs 1933–1985

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Germany 56 Australia 62 Architecture 74 Industry 112 The Worker

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Mining 170

Further Reading

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Selected Exhibitions

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Index 183

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Elizabeth Gilliam (1942– ) Photograph of Wolfgang Sievers at Half Moon Bay, Victoria, 1970 gelatin silver photograph; 12.4 x 12.4 cm nla.pic-an21908482 Courtesy Elizabeth Gilliam

Setting the Imagination to Work

The home and rambling garden in the Melbourne bayside suburb of Sandringham, where Wolfgang Sievers lived for 55 years, were very European in feel. The house was adorned with works of art, objects and mementoes inherited from his father, along with outstanding examples of nineteenth and early twentieth-century European furniture. The upstairs area was equipped with a darkroom and large workroom, which were purpose-built in the 1970s after Sievers closed the inner-city Melbourne studio he had occupied for several decades. It was in his light-filled workroom, with its much prized views of the trees and sky, that the elderly Sievers meticulously catalogued his extensive archive on which this book is based. The National Library of Australia acquired the thousands of negatives and prints, now known as the Wolfgang Sievers Photographic Archive, a few years before Sievers’ death in 2007 at the age of 93. Sievers excelled in the fields of architectural, industrial and mining photography in the crucial postwar years when Australia transformed itself into an industrial economy and modern society. His images— especially those from the 1950s to the 1970s—celebrate modernity’s most potent emblems: its physical structures that include high-rise office buildings, blocks of flats, huge factories, machinery, vast mines and oil refineries. Sievers also dealt with the role of workers in the modern machine age and the mass-produced products that were their

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offspring. However, he was not concerned simply with the tangible, physical outcomes of modernisation. His photography championed the spirit of the modern age and some of its fundamental principles, especially functionalism, purity of design and objectivity. In keeping with his direct experience of European modernism, Sievers saw his role as a photographer in radical terms, aiming to unite art and industry. He approached professional photography as a creative endeavour and developed a distinctive style, characterised by bold compositions, dramatic tonal contrasts and an often extraordinary depth of field. Sievers’ work also displays a penchant for grand scale and theatrical effects. The extent of Sievers’ contribution is evident in the Wolfgang Sievers Photographic Archive, which comprises 13 700 photographic prints and 51 700 negatives in both black and white and colour, and spans nearly 50 years of practice in Europe and Australia. Sievers’ Australian photography—which was commissioned by government departments, corporations, businesses and individuals, and presented in advertisements, trade exhibitions and annual reports—played a lead role in the representation and promotion of modern Australia. Its significance does not end here, for it is interwoven with another vital Australian story, that of migration. Sievers’ work is the result of a complex, lifelong process of negotiation between his European, specifically German, heritage and Australia, which became his home when he fled Nazism and settled in Melbourne in 1938. Sievers, who was born in Berlin in 1913, grew up in the Weimar Republic, which is known for its liberalism and wide ranging experimentation in art and culture. It was in Germany that he developed his intimate knowledge of art, architecture and modern photography, which shaped his responses to the modernisation of Australia and his ideas about the symbolic value of his images. The photographs Sievers produced do, of course, belong to a particular historical moment in Australia—the postwar years that historian Stuart Macintyre has described as a ‘golden age’—and they have a great deal to communicate about their times. They do not display any nostalgia for the past; emerging from a vibrant, fast-changing present they embrace the new, modern world of efficiency and precision. On behalf of his clients Sievers’ photography

declares its faith in modernity, modernisation and progress. Perhaps the most striking qualities of his images are the sense of certainty and optimism they embody, for they express no doubts about the future. Their vision thus seems worlds away from contemporary concerns about the negative impacts of technology, pollution, environmental degradation and climate change. During the 1980s, when Sievers was in what is often referred to as a ‘life review’ phase, he wrote extensively about his past, his German heritage and upbringing, his responses to Australia, and the background to his photographic practice. The latter incorporated his general views as well as specific commentary on individual images. Much of this found its way into the first retrospective of his work, the travelling exhibition The Life and Work of Wolfgang Sievers, which I curated for the National Gallery of Australia in 1991. In the years since then, two monographs have been published on Sievers’ photography; he appeared in the film Photographers of Australia and was interviewed for the oral history program at the National Library of Australia. I have drawn extensively on Sievers’ own commentary, a large part of which is in the public domain, for two reasons: in order to convey some sense of him as an individual and as a means of providing different kinds of insights into his work. Wolfgang Sievers’ photographs offer invaluable information about our modern industrial past but they are richer, more satisfying, and indeed more provocative, than straightforward records or documents would be. Their complexity and assured creativity are such that they function on multiple levels, making an outstanding contribution to the fields of Australian history, culture and photography.

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A Matter of Freedom: Berlin to Melbourne

I left my native country not because I am partly of Jewish descent but because I cannot and will not live without freedom. It was unbearable for me to see how nearly everything of culture is being destroyed by the National Socialists. I felt this since their start in 1933 and therefore went away to Portugal early in 1934. I returned from there once more because I wanted to gain more knowledge, experience and perfection in my profession. In 1938 I had acquired this—together with … modern, up-to-date professional equipment. I then went away—with a deep hate against those who destroy the achievements in art and culture, the freedom of spirit and who suppress Christianity. I chose Australia as my country of adoption because I wanted to find a new field of activity. I hope to be able to assist this country through my knowledge as thanks for the freedom which I can enjoy here. Statement by Wolfgang Sievers, in ‘Information about Wolfgang Sievers’, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation file1

Wolfgang Sievers’ story is an extraordinary one, with all the fine-grained texture and specificity of an individual’s life. And yet, in other respects, his story is typical of the twentieth century, for migration, whether chosen or forced, is commonly regarded as a fundamental experience of modernity. His early life and photography career were shaped by personal and political circumstances beyond his control. Within a few months of completing high school he was faced with a personal tragedy when his mother, Herma Sievers (nee Schiffer), died after an apparently short illness. The following year, in January 1933, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany and the National Socialists consolidated their power. Later that year Sievers’ father, Professor Dr Johannes Sievers, was dismissed from his post at the Foreign Office, which he held during the Weimar years, and the family’s situation became increasingly fraught. Throughout his life Wolfgang Sievers stressed the influence of his family on the development of his interests. He was fiercely proud of his ancestry, especially those relatives who had been court painters and decorators, and the attributes and achievements of his parents—‘my determined father and my gentle mother’.2 As children, Wolfgang and his brother Hans enjoyed all the benefits of a liberal upbringing and excellent education. Their mother Herma was a cultured woman who was in charge of an educational film institute. She introduced Wolfgang to what he later described as ‘the splendours of the Italian Renaissance’, when they embarked on their own grand tour in 1930, travelling to Italy and visiting Venice, Florence, Siena and San Gimignano. It was here that Sievers first used a good camera, one lent to him by his father who was interested in photography himself and encouraged his son’s inclinations from the outset. Johannes Sievers was an art historian who, early in his career at the Martin Gropius Museum, wrote major studies on the prints of German artists Käthe Kollwitz and Max Slevogt. In 1918 he became arts advisor for the Foreign Office. Some of the young Sievers’ earliest photographs related to his father’s work and interests, particularly in the area of architecture. Johannes Sievers’ official duties included the custodianship of historic buildings in Berlin, and he was an expert on the work of nineteenth-century Prussian neoclassical architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel. However, it was not only architecture of the past

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that attracted him; he engaged with the radical experimentation of the present as well, and modernist architect Erich Mendelsohn became a family friend. The young Wolfgang’s first school was the Kaiser Friedrich Gymnasium in Charlottenburg. He ‘hated everything about it’ and did badly as a student: I kept my very first school report showing that I achieved the lowest marks of the whole class, being rated the 49th of 49 children and giving a warning that ‘Sievers will have to improve considerably if he is to reach the next grade’. Age: 7. He attended high school in the workers’ suburb of Nowawes (located between the picturesque and affluent suburb of Wannsee, where his family lived, and Potsdam). He continued to fare poorly, ‘being particularly hopeless in mathematics’. However, he gained a rich education through his family—they were immersed in the abundant historical attractions and contemporary cultural activities the city had to offer. Sievers took weekly walks with his father to ‘places of historical or artistic interest in the summer and museums in wintertime’. He accompanied his mother to the theatre, opera and concerts. Herma Sievers was a baptised Christian of Jewish parents and brought up her sons as Lutherans. Sievers later recalled occasionally attending the Confessing Church that was established by Pastor Martin Niemoeller in 1933; Niemoeller opposed the Nazification of German Protestant churches (he was imprisoned from 1937 to 1945). The Nazi ascendancy had an almost immediate and far-reaching impact on the lives of Johannes Sievers and his two sons. Decades later Wolfgang recalled a prescient conversation with his father that took place in early 1933: I shall never forget the evening when, coming home from work, he got off his bicycle white as a sheet and told me that the Nazis were murdering their political opponents, socialists, communists and Jews. He knew that less than two months after Hitler had come to power. Hitler moved rapidly to institute the mechanisms of state control and repression, with the first wave of persecution being directed at

political activists, especially communists, and Jews. On 23 March 1933 the Enabling Act was passed, giving full legislative and executive powers to the Chancellor. On 7 April anti-Jewish measures were introduced with the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, followed by the Law for the Repeal of Previous Naturalization and Recognition of German Citizenship on 14 July. The first boycott of Jewish businesses took place in April; in May trade unions were abolished and the first book burnings took place in Berlin. In July all political parties, with the exception of the National Socialist German Workers Party, were banned. By September state control of the press was confirmed and the campaign to take control of the cultural sphere was well in train. The Reich Chamber of Culture, which was under the control of the Propaganda Ministry, was established. These fast-moving events directly affected Johannes Sievers. At the age of 52 he was dismissed from his post for refusing to join the National Socialist Party and serve under the Reich Minister for Propaganda, Josef Goebbels, and for his association with what the Nazis regarded as ‘depraved’ or ‘degenerate’ art. During the Nazi years Johannes Sievers lived in poverty on a small pension (his full pension was restored after the war), and at some stage the first floor of his home was occupied by Nazi officers. Wolfgang Sievers’ other memories of life under the Nazis included the following fragments. One evening, when travelling on the elevated railway after attending Greek lessons with his girlfriend, he saw the Reichstag burning. On another occasion they stood on a balcony and watched a huge parade of brown-shirted Nazis pass by in the street below. And a few months later, when working near the Columbus House in Potsdamer Platz in central Berlin, he climbed a wall, peered into the courtyard and saw Nazi storm-troopers marching with drawn revolvers pointed at the backs of their prisoners. He also recalled the widespread poverty in Berlin— ‘the shocking poverty, injustice and gross unemployment’ that provided Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Portrait of Wolfgang Sievers as a Photography Student at the Contempora School for Applied Arts, Berlin, Germany, 1937 gelatin silver photograph; 16.8 x 12.2 cm nla.pic-vn3385906

such fertile ground for Nazism and anti-Semitism. For the young Sievers, the original intention had been to study archaeology at university in Marburg with the expectation of a highly respectable career—he had envisaged a job in a museum as a strong possibility. However, as he described it in his own words, ‘history intervened’. It therefore became necessary to take a different path and

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pursue a more practical option. After completing his studies at high school he fulfilled the obligatory six-month stint in labour service through his involvement with a Christian group (he explained this as a way of avoiding the government’s Voluntary Labour Service). He then began a photography course at the Contempora School for Applied Arts, a private art academy in Berlin. This choice did in fact have a certain logic to it as he had already been exploring options in the field of photography; during his last year at high school he had worked part time as ‘a fledgling photographer’ in the royal china factory in Berlin. Sievers’ studies at the Contempora School were brief due to the tense political situation and his father’s insistence that he leave Germany for a safer country. In 1934 he went to Portugal where the well-connected Johannes Sievers had been able to arrange for his son to stay at the German Embassy in Lisbon (the German Ambassador, Hans ‘Pappi’ Freytag, was a family friend).

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Saltfields of Marques de Pombal at Aveiro, Portugal, 1934 gelatin silver photograph; 37.4 x 18.3 cm nla.pic-an24849766

Portugal represented freedom and adventure to the 21-year-old Sievers. There, between 1934 and 1935, he created his first significant body of work—producing fine interior studies of the Embassy building itself, photographing historical architecture and contemporary scenes in Lisbon, and working further afield in the picturesque countryside. Some of these photographs were purchased by the Dorien Leigh photo agency in London. The examples in the National Library of Australia’s collection demonstrate Sievers’ emerging command of a photographic language through his experimentation with varied subject matter and use of different vantage points. He processed his negatives and made his prints in the small darkroom he was permitted to install in the Embassy cellar. Geographically removed from the deteriorating situation in Germany, he enjoyed this privileged and protected time in Portugal. He spent quiet evenings in the company of his host, Ambassador ‘Pappi’ Freytag, and was intrigued by the ‘official’ activities conducted at the Embassy. Sievers later recalled: There were interesting receptions and wonderful dinner parties. My host often worked until late into the night—not deciphering secret messages but inscribing into a huge folio the details of diplomatic dinners planned to ensure an interesting variety of dishes and an amusing seating of guests (which of course did not include me). Sievers’ stay at the Embassy came to an abrupt end when Ambassador Freytag was dismissed in 1935 and replaced by an individual more sympathetic to the Nazi regime and at odds with Sievers’ anti-Nazi politics: The new Ambassador was Baron von Hoyningen-Huene, a brother of the famous photographer [Baron George Hoyningen-Huene, Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Shepherd in the Algarve, Portugal, 1934 gelatin silver photograph; 28.0 x 38.2 cm nla.pic-an24848931

who worked for Vogue in Paris]. I assumed him to be one of the ‘old school’ and helped him unpack because I greatly enjoyed the free board and lodging. Suddenly a huge bust of Hitler appeared out of one of the crates. Stunned, I turned to the new Ambassador and asked him—I admit somewhat crudely—why he had brought THAT BASTARD.

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During his last months in Portugal Sievers shared accommodation with a German bookseller in the old Alfama district of Lisbon. He continued his photographic pursuits but had become dissatisfied with his life, eventually realising that: ‘I hadn’t really achieved anything, I was not getting anywhere. It was time to face reality’. Against his father’s wishes he decided to return to Berlin, doing so after a brief foray into Spain, then in its crucial but short-lived second republican phase. Sievers later recounted his Spanish experiences in some detail, declaring the political and anti-war beliefs he held until the end of his life: I decided to leave all of my equipment behind and with a small pack crossed over to Spain in the north near Vigo where—without the slightest reason—I spent my very first night in a prison. From the start I didn’t like the Guardia Civil in their odd lacquered hats nor when they let me go without explanation or apology. The young struggling Republic was already in those early days beset from all sides by that unholy trinity of large landowners, the Catholic Church and part of the Army … In Madrid I rented a room near the church of the San Antonio De La Florida with the lovely cupola painted by Goya. There, above a baker’s shop, I spent some time learning Spanish in a hurry by reading crime stories … With an introduction from my father I visited the legendary Prof. Obermaier who was the great expert on the caves of Altamira with their wonderful prehistoric paintings. That brought me to Madrid where I volunteered digging anti air raid trenches—a job I was to repeat seven years later in the Melbourne Domain opposite Australian Army Headquarters. This was during the very early days of the Spanish Civil War [war did not break out until July 1936], long before the formation of the International Brigade when small individual groups set off on their own against the still scattered fascist forces. While a large part of the population in Germany co-operated enthusiastically with the Nazis, the situation in Spain was infinitely more tragic because most ordinary people and—for once—even a good part of the Army supported the popular and democratically elected young Spanish Republic. Franco would never have succeeded without his colonial troops imported from Africa and the crushing assistance provided by the Fascist

and Nazi armies and air forces. There is a small tablet at the Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Austria in memory of the 7,000 Spanish Republican soldiers handed over to the Nazis by the French to their eternal disgrace and murdered by the Nazis. The memory of innocent men, women and children from more than twenty-nine nations done to death here—as well as in so many other Concentration Camps—will never leave me, as long as I live. In Asturias the nights in the open were bitterly cold. Pneumonia and some kind of Mediterranean malaria rendered me useless. Somehow I managed to get to Gibraltar, a bed and loving people, I knew not whether English or Spanish. Recovered, I took a circuitous route via North Africa to Lisbon where I picked up my gear and found a fishing trawler that could take me back to Germany without having to face too many questions. My father was horrified when I turned up at home. It took me a while to make him understand that I just had not learnt enough to make a decent living anywhere and to persuade him that I needed some very intense schooling before setting off again. His fears, however, had been fully justified when I was summoned a few days later to one of Berlin’s dreaded Gestapo Interrogation Centres where I was immediately confronted with the information that I had been ‘on the wrong side’ in the Spanish Civil War. Only slightly damaged and perhaps thanks to the impudence of youth, the Gestapo released me a few days later. In mid-1935 Sievers rejoined the Contempora School for Applied Arts where he remained until early 1938. The training Sievers received at the school laid the foundations for his career in Australia and was important in a number of respects. The school followed Bauhaus principles; in particular the commitment to the applied arts, and the view that arts and industry should be united, with the artist serving an important social role. These proved to be core beliefs for Sievers, for he never made a distinction between his creative and commercial work, they were one and the same. Further, it was at the school that Sievers was introduced to modernist photography, or what is now generally known as New Photography, which was developed in the USSR and Germany during the 1920s. In Germany it was championed in

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books such as Foto-auge (Photo-eye) and Es Kommt der Neue Fotograf! (Here Comes the New Photography!), and the groundbreaking Film und Foto exhibition held in Stuttgart in 1929. Germany was recognised as a world leader in different fields of photography and boasted numerous innovative photographic practitioners, from László Moholy-Nagy and others associated with the Bauhaus school, to August Sander and Albert Renger-Patzsch. In the formation of Sievers’ approach it was the style of Neue Sachlichkeit, or New Objectivity, that proved especially important, with its emphasis on sharp focus and precision. Although the initial impetus for the New Photography was radical, it entered the service of capitalism as readily as it did communism and socialism. It was quickly taken up as an instrument for selling new products in the rapidly expanding field of photo-illustration. There is no evidence that Sievers engaged with photomontage, collage, photograms and other radical forms of experimentation championed at the Bauhaus by MoholyNagy. The Bauhaus, which had relocated from Dessau to Berlin in 1932, was closed down by the Nazis in April 1933 and Sievers recalled deep anxieties about the future of the Contempora School as well. Sievers also admired the work of American photographers of the day, especially Edward Steichen who was known for his elegant commercial work. The Contempora School attracted both German and foreign students seeking a professional training in photography. By the mid-1930s studies at the school were underscored with a much greater intensity and sense of urgency than had been the case when Sievers first attended. Courses did not include theory, and practical work was crammed into a six-month program. When classes ended for the day the school became a commercial studio where students gained valuable professional experience—which, Sievers stated, was ‘always under the watchful eye of a thoroughly experienced practical photographer and wonderful teacher’. After completing his studies Sievers became an assistant in the photography department and was put in charge when its director, Erich Balg, was away on assignment. During his time at the school, which Sievers categorised as the most intensive educational experience of his life, he learnt about advertising and fashion photography, layouts and art direction. From the work he produced under supervision, such as the elegant advertisement for Elbeo stockings in the National Library of Australia’s collection, it is

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) ‘Elbeo’ Stockings Advertisement, Contempora School for Applied Arts, Berlin, Germany, 1938 gelatin silver photograph; 28.9 x 38.9 cm nla.pic-an24848851

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obvious that he was very talented, developing quickly and performing at a high level. As outlined in his letter of application for entry to Australia on 12 July 1937, he also developed a specialisation ‘in scientific and technical photography, including micro-, astro-, x-ray, infrared and colour photography as well as photography in scientific research institutes, hospitals, universities etc.’ In other words, he received a high-quality, all-round training in professional photography. This was augmented by work for his father who, after being dismissed from the Foreign Office, had begun research for his four-volume publication on architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel.3 Sievers photographed many of Schinkel’s buildings in Berlin, gaining invaluable experience that he would further develop in his architectural photography in Australia in the 1950s and 1960s. What is also clear from Sievers’ photographs from the crucial years 1936 to 1938 was his growing love of the photographic medium. He was immersed in photography at the Contempora School, citing 16-hour days spent in the studio, and continued after hours when he took his camera into Berlin’s streets and parks, including the beautiful park of Schloss Glienicke near the family home at Wannsee. Sievers’ evolving practice was predicated on realism but he was not interested in a documentary mode; his images were not spontaneous but were deliberate and quite formal. Signs of his experimentation with modernist photography can be seen in his choice of varied subject matter—arguably the most diverse of his career—and the elimination of picturesque elements that were predominant in his earlier Portuguese work. Most conspicuous, however, is Sievers’ expanded use of unusual vantage points, the up and down shots, or ‘worm’s eye’, and bird’s-eye views, which are hallmarks of modernist photography. They were first evident in 1933—for example, he photographed the organ grinder in Poverty in Berlin from a low vantage point—but became more ambitious as his style developed. For his photograph of the historic area of Frankfurt in 1937, he positioned himself in the church steeple high above the old buildings, looking down onto the rooftops and streets to achieve a momentarily disorienting, abstract effect. Like many of Sievers’ architectural shots taken in Berlin, this image has gained an additional layer of meaning and poignancy because of the destruction caused during the Allied bombings in the Second World War.

Sievers was never a natural portraitist but in 1937 he produced one of the strongest portraits of his career. Its subject was Asta von Borch, a fellow student at the Contempora School, whom he described as having ‘a talent for encouraging interesting friendships’. Through her, Sievers was introduced to Finnish student Brita Klaerich, a fashion student specialising in theatre costume design, who later became his wife. Von Borch was the daughter of the German Ambassador in Peking and, according to Sievers, had already led a colourful life by the time he met her, having run away with an American sailor and then subsequently disappearing from contact for several months. The portrait gains its energy from the adoption of an off-kilter viewpoint, reinforced by the young woman’s upwards gaze and the strong diagonals of the window frames behind her. While the period 1936 to 1938 was intense and productive, it was charged with instability because of the fast-changing political situation and the Nazi regime’s increasing stranglehold. Sievers had no intention of remaining in Germany but his decision to apply to migrate to Australia came about through two fortuitous encounters: one with a German scientist (Dr Krause), who had lived in Australia and spoke favourably of his experiences, and the other with an Australian woman (Miss Dorsch), who was studying childcare in Berlin. It was Miss Dorsch who organised the requisite three sponsors for Sievers’ migration application.4 Australia appealed to him because it was ‘as far way from the Nazis as possible as well as being an English speaking country’. In preparation for his new life, his teachers and colleagues at the Contempora School wrote very positive testimonials. Erich Balg praised his ‘great skill and interest’, continuing that Sievers was: … one of the few photographers of the younger generation in whom are combined complete mastery of technique with artistic talent, so that he is capable of solving all problems with which he is confronted. 25 June 1937. Professor Fritz Breuhaus, a prominent German architect and interior designer who was also based at the Contempora School, was equally supportive. In his testimonial of 30 June 1937 he stated that Sievers ‘laid the greatest value on thoroughness and preciseness in carrying through problems, and never lacked energy and endurance in difficult

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cases’. He recommended him in the highest terms, both as a photographer and as a teacher. On a more immediately practical level, Sievers: … bought all the equipment necessary for a whole photographic studio, among them a beautiful monorail camera made entirely by hand—even down to the brass screws—by the great old camera builder Stegemann … Everything, even some furniture and household goods, was packed into a Liftvan and sent to London to temporary storage. By early 1938 Sievers’ passport had been obtained, documents secured, including the landing permit for Australia, and the exorbitant departure taxes paid (they cost more than 200 pounds). Then, as he later wrote, ‘disaster struck’. He was called up for service as an aerial photographer in the German air force, the Luftwaffe. Here is how he described the fateful sequence of events that ensued: Having been duly inducted at the recruitment centre I was in utter despair. But with nothing to lose I succeeded in having myself paraded to the commanding officer whom I managed to see alone without the presence of the usual escort. Having listened to my pleas he advised me to leave Germany after completion of my two or maybe three years service. When I reminded him that I would then use all I had learnt against Germany in the war now imminent, he opened a drawer in his desk—not to pull out his revolver to shoot me but to put my papers away with the five words: twenty-four hours, get lost. Sievers attributed his escape to great luck. That evening he said goodbye to his father at the Zoologischer Garten railway station in central Berlin, and left on a train bound for London. He never made explicit the exact details of his journey, but apparently disembarked at a station a few stops after Cologne and walked through forest to the Belgian border. From there he made his way to England where his brother was already living, having abandoned his studies in law at Berlin University. Sievers spent three months in England before finally sailing to Australia on 5 August on board the P&O ship, the Comorin. Politician Robert Menzies was a fellow passenger and Sievers recalled a fiery conversation with him; Menzies had recently

visited Nazi Germany and praised the regime’s efficiency. Sievers arrived in Fremantle in September 1938 and did not consider his first sight of Australia in positive terms: the ‘ugly corrugated iron sheds of Fremantle Harbour … could have caused me to turn back at once from the promised land had the Gestapo not been waiting for me at the other end’. After staying a few weeks in Perth he took the train to Sydney where he intended to settle, taking a room in a boarding house in Kings Cross. In late October or early November he visited the German Consulate in Sydney and met with the Consul, Dr Asmiss, whom his father knew. Johannes Sievers had written to Asmiss several months earlier, requesting that he extend any assistance he could to his son. Sievers found Sydney’s humidity unbearable and enervating, and the possibility of employment with Russell Roberts, who ran one of Sydney’s most prominent photography studios, did not eventuate. He therefore travelled on to Melbourne, a letter from Dr Asmiss following him. Addressed to Mr Drechsler at the German Consulate in Melbourne, it read: Sydney, 8th November, 1938 Dear Mr Drechsler A few days ago Mr George Wolfgang Sievers called on me and informed me that he intended to settle down in Melbourne as an art photographer. Mr Sievers is the son of our [former] colleague, the Councillor of Legation … Professor Dr. Sievers, whom you certainly know personally. The young man has left Germany because his mother was a Jewess, and he could not stand such discrimination as a nonAryan. His father has written to me asking for advice and help for his son. I am forwarding this request on to you. The young man makes quite a good impression … He is a Christian and therefore belongs to those non-Aryans who can be assimilated, that is to say, he can be accepted as a member of our German Associations although naturally he cannot be a Party Member.

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I should be very grateful to you if you would kindly assist him in building up an existence in Melbourne, according to the possibilities on hand. With hearty greetings, Heil Hitler (Sgd) Dr. Asmiss Despite the dramatic circumstances of his departure from Germany, Sievers was in a relatively good position compared to many others fleeing fascism. He had arrived in Australia, not as a refugee, but as an emigrant with some money, 318 pounds to be exact. Far more importantly, he had sent ahead his valuable cameras and photographic equipment; his assets on 4 May 1939 were valued at 2000 pounds and his camera equipment alone was insured for the considerable sum of 1600 pounds. Once in Melbourne he was faced with three urgent tasks: to find a place to live, to secure employment and to arrange for his fiancée, Brita Klaerich, to join him. The latter was critical in light of the worsening situation in Europe and the possibility that war would break out before she could leave. According to documents on Sievers’ ASIO file, he considered taking the drastic action of arranging for Klaerich to fly to Melbourne, rather than having her travel by sea as was far more typical. However, she eventually arrived on the Dutch ship Almkerk in October 1939, a month after war had been declared. The couple married a week later, once Brita had learnt the English words ‘yes’ and ‘I do’. They held a wedding reception with their two witnesses, celebrating with ‘two rounds of sandwiches and a bottle of sherry at a total cost of seven shillings and six pence’. (Wolfgang and Brita Sievers divorced in 1972.) Sievers fared well with his accommodation. He stayed first with a German and Australian couple, Ernst and Grace Matthaei, and then for 10 shillings a week boarded with Melbourne establishment couple Richard and Maie Casey at their home, Little Pardon, in East Melbourne. At the time Richard Casey was Treasurer in the Australian federal government led by Labor Prime Minister, Joseph Lyons; he was later appointed Governor of Bengal and Governor-General of Australia. Maie Casey—whom Sievers described as an ‘extraordinary woman’—was a great supporter of the visual arts. She had trained as an artist and was a major collector of

modern Australian and European art (including a painting by Picasso). The Caseys gave the Sievers a sophisticated European wedding present—a set of Orrefors glasses. Casey’s brother Dermot also had an important role to play in Sievers’ life; he was an archaeologist and a friend who provided him with crucial practical assistance. Early in 1939 Sievers moved to a flat in Toorak Road, South Yarra, where the kitchen doubled as a darkroom. He and Brita remained in the flat during the war years. He also managed to find work without any significant delay. This may seem surprising, given that he was an outsider with poor English (he never lost his strong German accent) and had no professional contacts, but it suggests that the quality of his portfolio was readily appreciated. While Sievers referred to himself as a scientific photographer in official documents of the time, his first jobs were varied. They included portraiture and product advertising, neither of which he ever particularly enjoyed. The real excitement came with assignments from industry, notably Bryant & May and Charles Ruwolt Engineering Works (Vickers Ruwolt). He also photographed agricultural machinery in western Victoria. With these assignments he was in his element, declaring that: ‘The honesty and skill of the workers combined with the functional design of the machines stimulated me greatly and that attraction was never to leave me’. In May 1939, Sievers stated that he had earned an impressive 600 pounds in the previous two months (that year the average yearly wage for men in manufacturing was 211 pounds). By year’s end he had worked on nearly 80 jobs. One of the earliest photographs Sievers produced in Australia was Manufacture of Matches at Bryant & May, Richmond, Victoria (1939), an audacious image from a series by the 26-year-old photographer. The British-owned company of Bryant & May was known for its progressive approach to its business and ran its Melbourne operations as a model factory; workers were provided with excellent amenities and conditions. Sievers dealt creatively with his subject matter, moving in close so that machines and matches filled the frame. This was a celebration of mass production and modern industry, delivered crisply and confidently. It was worlds away from the romantically inclined industrial photography Harold Cazneaux had produced for BHP at its Newcastle steelworks just a few years earlier.

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While Sievers may have secured his freedom from Nazi Germany, the disruptions caused by the spread of fascism were far from over. The day after the Second World War was declared, Dermot Casey arrived at Sievers’ flat and removed all his photographic equipment, keeping it at his own home to prevent its confiscation by the authorities. It was returned as soon as Sievers had been cleared. Sievers immediately attempted to enlist in the Australian Imperial Forces (AIF) and later in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). He made his case—with assistance from friends who helped him write ‘in decent English’—in a letter to Inspector R. Browne, Investigation Branch. Dated 2 September 1939 the letter, which is on Sievers’ ASIO file, reads: It is my ardent desire to assist … my country of adoption in any fight for the preservation of its freedom. Moreover I want to make it as clear as possible that I am ready to do everything Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Manufacture of Matches at Bryant & May, Richmond, Victoria, 1939 gelatin silver photograph; 51.0 x 36.3 cm nla.pic-an25120818

which would help to destroy the National Socialist System and Government. I offer myself voluntarily for any service including military duty. His offer was rejected. He continued to work as a photographer but his options were limited, especially once he was classified as an enemy alien by the Australian Government (the classification applied to German immigrants living in Australia as well as immigrants from other countries that were enemies in the war). In 1941 he successfully applied

Harold Cazneaux (1878–1953) Blast Furnace, 1934 gelatin silver photograph; 24.4 x 36.0 cm nla.pic-an2381185 Courtesy the Cazneaux family

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for a permit to retain his cameras but was not permitted to work in the industrial field. Instead, he was confined mainly to portraiture, which included taking official portraits of members of the armed services. Sievers’ request to be considered for the RAAF met with the following response from the Secret Service on 10 March 1942: The applicant is understood to be clever at photographic work and his cameras and outfit are valued at about 1000 pounds. The Police Sergeant to whom the applicant is known considered SIEVERS to be a real German, who would help his country if given the opportunity to do so. The Police have nothing recorded against SIEVERS, although he would be a very able man should he be enlisted by his country to gather information on defence matters, and in consequence the Sergeant does not recommend his enlistment in the R.A.A.F. Both SIEVERS and his wife traveled about Melbourne and suburbs a good deal prior to the recent restrictions. They are both young and active, dress well, are good ‘mixers’ and are fond of amusement. In view of the Police Report, it is suggested that SIEVERS be enlisted in the R.A.A.F. on condition that he be retained in Victoria and that he be kept under constant supervision at the school of photography at Point Cook. This did not eventuate. Sievers was finally accepted not by the RAAF but by the army shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He commenced service on 9 March 1942 as a member of the 4th Labour Company (later titled 4th Employment Company), which comprised European refugees, some of whom were Jewish. The company was based in Albury where the men worked on the railways moving stores from one train to another, due to the different rail gauges in Victoria and New South Wales. During this time Brita Sievers was involved in war work, weaving parachutes for the air force at a factory in Collingwood. After sustaining a spinal injury and a period of six months rehabilitation at Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital, Sievers was transferred to the army headquarters’ photographic section in Melbourne. There he spent

nearly 18 months ‘taking part in the paper war, occasionally showing an officer how to put a film into a camera and waiting for morning tea’. On 28 February 1946 he was discharged from the army. He resumed his photographic practice at 9 Collins Street, Melbourne, in a large, well-lit studio on the second floor, with room for an office, workroom and darkroom. He and his family—a daughter, Karin, was born in 1944 and a son, Anders, two years later—moved to a flat in Sargood Street, Toorak. With assistance from his wife Brita in the organisational side of the business and in the area of graphic design, Wolfgang Sievers could finally immerse himself in his photographic career.

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Private Sievers with Wife and Daughter Brita and Karin at Red Bluff, Sandringham, Victoria, 1946 gelatin silver photograph; 21.0 x 18.0 cm nla.pic-vn3392581

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Forgetting the Past: The Postwar Years

It was now time to forget about the past, we hardly ever talked about it (1988).

By the time Sievers was discharged from the army he was nearly 33 years old with a wife and two young children to support. His German background had already presented obvious difficulties, preventing him from being able to serve in the Australian armed forces in the fight against fascism, and resulting in his classification as an enemy alien in the war years. It also meant that he attracted the attention of ASIO on a number of occasions. In 1954 he was the subject of an unconfirmed report ‘that his associations might be suspect’—in other words, that he might be associated with the Australian Communist Party, which was known to have an active cell at Brauns Construction, one of Sievers’ key clients. This led to an investigation and the following note on his ASIO file, which concluded he was not a communist: I have met, socially, subjects of this file, Mr and Mrs SIEVERS. He is not very forthcoming in conversation & obviously is very careful to keep his real views to himself. What his views are, therefore I do not know. I did gain the impression that he could be very slightly to the left. He seems very happy in Australia and the life here appeals to him, especially the general air of ‘freedom’. Altogether he is somewhat of an enigma. Undoubtedly a clever person, who gives the impression of having everything well assessed. Mrs S & the children most pleasant. 26/3/56.

Like every other migrant, Wolfgang Sievers had to contend with two complex relationships: with his country of origin and his new home country. His feelings about Germany were deeply ambivalent and he was reluctant to return to visit. It was 1955 before he went back (by then he had not seen his father for 17 years), and he found the experience extremely difficult. He did not want to identify as a German national and initially refused to speak his native language. Indeed, Sievers, who was naturalised as an Australian citizen in 1944, preferred his adopted country to his original country. Throughout his life he reiterated his gratitude, stating that it was Australia that gave him ‘life, happiness and freedom’. He appreciated the lifestyle, especially once his family moved to a new home at 52 Edward Street in Sandringham where the beach was a short walk away. However, far more crucial was the fact that he felt he could make a useful contribution to Australian society in his capacity as a professional photographer. Paradoxically, this is where his German background could be considered in positive terms; it embodied rich historical and cultural traditions, and a progressive attitude to modernity and photography that set him apart from his Australian contemporaries. Sievers’ situation was common to European exiles involved in arts and culture during this period. As Margaret Garlake noted in relation to the experiences of artists exiled to Great Britain, they brought with them: … deeply held beliefs in the social role of art, the nature of artistic practice and the balance between tradition and modernity that were either ahead of thinking in this country or sufficiently distinctive to act as models for change.5 During his first few years in Australia Sievers recognised that his German training and experience marked his distinctiveness and gave him a competitive edge. He was alarmed by the quality of the great Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Pottery by Brita Sievers and Paintings by Elma Amor at Peter Bray Art Gallery, Bourke Street, Melbourne, Victoria, 1957 gelatin silver photograph; 24.0 x 18.0 cm nla.pic-vn4492148

majority of work he came across and was dismissive of it. As he saw it, Australia was ‘50 years behind the times’ in architecture, design and photography. In his view: … most Australian photographers were either competent commercial hacks or still wallowing in the worst tradition of the late 19th century with mawkish portraits and hazy gum trees. (I went to see the great [John] Kauffmann and fled … )

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The only practitioners he considered as exceptions at this time were Max Dupain in Sydney and Athol Shmith in Melbourne, both of whom he felt displayed some understanding of modern photography. Sievers was therefore prepared to be different in an era of assimilation, referring to himself as that ‘bloody German’. His short experiment with anglicising his name—by replacing Wolfgang with his middle name, George—ended on the advice of a friend who explained that: … everybody in Australia was called Bob, Bill or George; Wolfgang was quite unpronounceable but, just because of that, I would be remembered as that photographer with the hard name. Although he may not have conceived them as such, Sievers developed strategies that enabled him to thrive in a new country and culture. Being prepared to stand out in the professional arena was one of them. Forging productive personal and professional relationships with other Europeans, especially Germans and Austrians, was another. These fellow émigrés included architect Frederick Romberg and designer Gerard Herbst, who served in the same Employment Company as Sievers during the war (Herbst was one of the infamous Dunera internees). Four of the five most important photographers working in Melbourne in the 1950s were German born: Helmut Newton (Neustädter), Henry Talbot (Tichauer), Mark Strizic and Sievers himself.6 All had been affected by the rise of fascism and the outbreak of war, although the circumstances of their arrival in Australia differed greatly. Talbot was another Dunera internee and Newton arrived as an internee via Singapore on the Queen Mary. Sievers worked especially closely with Helmut Newton, who was interned at Tatura, New South Wales, in the early war years and established his photographic practice after the war, specialising in fashion. Sievers and Newton shared the same printer at this time.7 Sievers also showed himself to be highly adaptive and flexible. In the early years, for example, he photographed whatever came his way, ‘portraits, even babies, even a wedding or two, and dreary, purely commercial jobs’, in order to earn a living. He was briefly involved in fashion, which never appealed to him. In 1946 he took a particularly stylish image of a group of French models who were visiting Melbourne, and a few years later photographed a local model whom he posed out-of-doors at Red Bluff. Her dress was made of fabric his

friend Gerard Herbst designed for the Melbourne-based company Prestige Limited. Very quickly, however, a pattern began to emerge as Sievers secured important architectural and industrial commissions. Australia was undergoing a period of dramatic postwar construction and rapid growth in heavy industry and manufacturing that brought increased prosperity. In Victoria the government encouraged overseas manufacturers to set up businesses in the state.8 Opportunities for commercial photographers were therefore abundant. Their work was illustrated in magazines (both in feature articles and advertisements), journals and publications such as annual reports, and was presented in trade exhibitions. In his architectural photography Sievers drew on his European heritage and experience, especially the work he had undertaken on Schinkel for his father and his contact with modernist architect Erich Mendelsohn. A copy of Mendelsohn’s 1932 book Neues Haus, Neue Welt (New House, New World), was one of his most prized possessions. Sievers later wrote that Mendelsohn had taught him that: To photograph important architecture—and particularly modern architecture—one had to be overcome by a great feeling of excitement when looking at a new building. Whereas a photographer would have to search hard in order to find some suitable views in a mediocre building, with a great one he would hardly know where to start and be impatient to get on with photographing it all. During the 1950s and 1960s Sievers collaborated with leading architectural firms and architects of the day. They included Yuncken Freeman; Bates, Smart and McCutcheon; and architects Frederick Romberg, Roy Grounds, Robin Boyd, Alex Jelinek and Peter McIntyre. He considered their architecture innovative because it built on the Bauhaus ideas and modernist traditions he greatly admired in the work of international architects Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe and Alvar Aalto. Sievers met Aalto in Finland in 1955 and took some photographs for him, which he regarded as one of the highlights in his life. The architectural work Sievers produced over more than two decades spanned a diverse range of activity—from residential buildings to tertiary institutions and high-rise office buildings (his industrial

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photography also had a very strong architectural basis). Whereas his industrial photography took him all over Australia, his architectural practice was confined mainly to Melbourne. Australia’s second largest city was in the throes of transforming itself into a modern metropolis, a process that gained a huge impetus when it was selected to host the 1956 Olympic Games. In the residential field Sievers worked at the high end of the market, photographing unique, architect-designed flats and houses. One of his earliest architectural assignments was for Frederik Romberg, a Swiss-trained architect who had arrived in Melbourne in 1939. Sievers photographed Romberg’s block of flats, Stanhill, on Queens Road, Melbourne—his best known work—which is celebrated for its active façade and complex, interlocking elements. Sievers used a similarly radical modernist language, choosing a dramatic downward view to create a disorienting image of the flats in which geometry has the upper hand. Other innovative architecture Sievers photographed for Romberg included the Hillstan flats, which were built to house textile workers (the complex was located on the Nepean Highway and was demolished in 1980). Sievers’ dynamic, stylish images of Romberg’s buildings were published in Art in Australia, which championed modern architecture and modern living. Another outstanding example of domestic architecture was Alex Jelinek’s Round House designed for Professor and Mrs Bruce Benjamin, which Sievers photographed in 1958. Located in the Canberra suburb of Deakin, it set an Australian benchmark in the application of a geometrically oriented international style. What a joy to be asked to photograph this wonderful house … for which the architect received the prestigious House of the Year Award … It was designed by the Czechoslovakian Alex Jelinek— and who has heard of him? His tragedy was that he was far ahead of his time; perhaps, like so many newcomers—myself included— he was also too demanding and too difficult. The Benjamin House is a fine example of collaboration between an architect and furniture designer. The furniture was made by Schulim Krimper, a cabinet-maker who had fled from Austria.

Sievers’ view of the exterior of the house emphasised three main aspects: its relation to the site, radical geometric form and varied construction materials. He achieved his trademark dramatic impact through the adoption of a low vantage point—looking up the slope towards the house—and inclusion of a cloud-streaked sky. Photographs of the house were featured in a prestigious international magazine, Aujourd’hui: Art et Architecture (September 1959). Generally, Sievers’ exterior views of residential buildings are more memorable than his interior shots, in part because he was so attuned to large structures and expansive spaces. He relied on contrasts in Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) House of Professor Benjamin, Deakin, Australian Capital Territory, 1958 gelatin silver photograph; 20.0 x 25.0 cm nla.pic-an13934459-7

scale and tone to achieve the sense of drama and dynamism that emerged as hallmarks of his work. Most domestic interior spaces appear to have constrained him, not only were they too small, they were too intimate. However, noteworthy interiors include his studies

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of Heide, the home at Heidelberg in Melbourne designed by David McGlashan for prominent art patrons John and Sunday Reed. On this occasion Sievers was particularly attentive to the relationship between the architecture, the Reeds‘ furniture and their outstanding art collection. Heide 2, as it was later known, became a museum of contemporary art. In the 1950s Sievers photographed some of Melbourne’s landmark civic projects, such as the Olympic Swimming Pool and the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, followed by the National Gallery of Victoria in 1968. He also produced an outstanding series on the construction of the South Eastern Purification Plant and Metropolitan Board of Works. However, from the 1960s onwards, his architectural work was dominated by commissions from the high end of town. The newly completed high-rise buildings—which epitomised Melbourne’s modernisation (this occurred with little resistance or criticism at the time)—were the headquarters for insurance companies (AMP, New Zealand Insurance, Colonial Mutual Life Assurance and Eagle Life Insurance), banks, corporations and mining companies (BHP House and Shell House). They dominated the city’s skyline. Most of these buildings were in the international style of architecture that Sievers mirrored in his own functionalist, objective photography emphasising rationality and efficiency. His images spoke not only the language of the architecture that was their ostensible subject, but also the language of modern capitalism. Their tone was assured and authoritative. In Melbourne Sievers did not develop an ‘alternative’ vision; he did not produce anything equivalent to his Poverty in Berlin taken decades earlier, or the postwar documentary work of Australian photographers such as Max Dupain, David Moore and Axel Poignant. In contrast to domestic architecture, high-rise buildings gave Sievers large interior spaces—entrances, foyers, open plan offices—with which he could work effectively. His photographs provide valuable information about office layouts and design; the environments pictured are thoroughly modern, decorated in the latest colours, and with the most contemporary furniture and fittings. The images also convey a good deal of information about working conditions for the rapidly growing numbers of clerical staff in the 1960s and the hierarchical structure within which they worked. On many occasions Sievers

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007)

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[Office Interior in] the New Colonial Mutual Life Building, Corner of Collins and Elizabeth Streets, Melbourne, Victoria, 1963 gelatin silver photograph; 19.4 x 24.2 cm nla.pic-vn3267986

stepped as far back as possible, to provide an extended view that emphasises the repeated patterns of modular work spaces, which are separated from managers’ offices and boardrooms. His photographs— whether of work spaces or canteens—give an overwhelming impression of uniformity and, by implication, of conformity. People are mostly absent, the brand new workplaces not yet displaying any signs of human occupation or personalisation. His State Government Offices, Spring Street, Melbourne asserts a particular power dynamic. Sievers positions himself at the head of the table, where, like the chairman or manager, he secures a long, complete view of the room and its imagined occupants. The viewer also adopts this position of mastery in the process of viewing the image. In the 1950s and 1960s Sievers’ architectural photography was primarily black and white. He regarded this as the heroic period of black-and-white photography because it pre-dated the use of camera-mounted flash and strobe lighting, polaroids for correcting mistakes, inbuilt exposure metres, and the host of other aids that later made commercial photography much easier. However, he also worked in colour in the mid-1960s for a series of promotional images of hotels: the Federal, Menzies and Savoy Plaza hotels in Melbourne, and Lennons Hotel in Brisbane. These richly coloured and beautifully

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structured images have an unnatural, rather stilted quality. The carefully arranged figures are self-consciously frozen within the elaborate tableaux Sievers constructed; he developed this approach far more successfully in his industrial work of the same time. By the early 1970s Sievers declared himself very dissatisfied with the quality of contemporary architecture and, in accordance with Erich Mendelsohn’s dictum, declined to photograph buildings that he did not admire. He rejected a request to photograph the new Parliament House in Canberra because he considered the architecture to be ‘appallingly bad’. In his view the building lacked: … purity of design and is repeatedly marred by ‘featurism’—that besetting sin of Australian architecture, already identified in the early fifties by Robin Boyd in The Australian Ugliness. Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Federal Hotel, South West Corner Collins and King Streets, Melbourne, Victoria, 1965 type C photograph; 38.5 x 49.0 cm nla.pic-an24798080

There is no doubt that Sievers was one of the finest architectural photographers working in Australia in the 1950s and 1960s, and created many outstanding images. However, he produced his consistently best work for the industrial and mining sectors. This brought together key aspects of his German heritage and his enduring interests. In his industrial photography his early training—especially in architecture where he developed his grasp of structure and form—and his reverence for the machine age bore the greatest dividends. His output was diverse and included photographs of buildings and plant associated with industry, manufacturing processes, products and the inter-related area of work. His range of clients was extensive, spanning the timber, paper, chemical, glass and textile industries. Mining encompassed bauxite, coal, minerals and oil. Some of his most memorable work was undertaken for companies such as Vickers Ruwolt Engineering Works, Mobil and Shell, with which he had a long association. Industrial photography was the area in which Sievers made an original and long-lasting contribution—in part because of the clarity of his vision of Australia as a modern, industrial economy no longer solely dependent on the agricultural base that had earlier sustained it. His photographs were used in Australia in companies‘ annual reports and promotional material but their international reach was also crucial; through their presentation in trade exhibitions and publications that promoted exports, the photographs had a larger role to play in changing people’s perceptions of Australia. In addition, Sievers was commissioned by the Department of Overseas Trade to replace outdated material in its photographic library with creative work or, more precisely, illustrations ‘of quality, precision, innovation and craftmanship’. As Sievers explained, his primary concern was: … to promote and enhance Australia’s standing in the world as an industrial nation capable of turning out precision work of the highest quality and to overcome ideas still widely held overseas that Australia was a strange place only fit for sheep, wheat, minerals, kangaroos … (1988). The photographs’ clarity and graphic power demand that they be noticed.

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The ambitiousness of the new role for Australian industry was matched by the boldness of Sievers’ approach to industrial photography. It was here that he could be simultaneously at his most imaginative and masterful. In his hands, industrial photography became a thoroughly creative enterprise, displaying his own distinctive vision that was at once theatrical, futuristic and impersonal. Over time, it also became increasingly grand. Sievers’ achievements did not relate simply to his love of industry, but to his appreciation of good design that triumphed in the industrial sphere. Everything he depicted—whether buildings, machinery or products—related to function, with nothing extraneous or excessive to be found. As early as the 1950s Sievers was revelling in the creative possibilities provided by large industrial complexes, such as the Mobil Stanvac oil refinery at Altona in Victoria. His images conveyed a sense of almost limitless scale that went far beyond the human. On the rare occasion workers were included in outdoor shots they were dwarfed by their surroundings. Sievers was also captivated by the modern materials used in construction and wrote in 1988 that: Photographing an oil refinery is sheer delight: the concentration of pure forms in shining aluminium present a wonderful challenge to the eye and the mind of a photographer. The demands for functional and honest design in industry have had an immense influence in architecture in modern times … Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Cell Room at the Electrolytic Zinc Plant, Risdon, Tasmania, 1956 gelatin silver photograph; 18.7 x 24.3 cm nla.pic-vn3085303

His images of factory interiors were equally spectacular, often rendered with an extraordinary depth of field which ensures that objects in the immediate foreground and far distance are presented in the same exactitude, giving the viewer a full view of the immensity and complexity of the operations being depicted. See, for instance, Cell Room at the Electrolytic Zinc Plant, Risdon, Tasmania (1956), with its dramatically receding end point. Such images call to mind the work of contemporary Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky whose recent photographs deal with the vast scale of manufacturing in factories in China. Many of Sievers’ compositions are dominated by strong vertical emphases, such as towers, chimneys and buildings, which impose themselves onto a horizontal landscape.

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Cracking Tower, Stanvac Oil Refinery, Altona, Victoria, 1955 gelatin silver photograph; 49.7 x 38.5 cm nla.pic-an24429616

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When photographing factory interiors and manufacturing processes Sievers’ intellectual approach came to the fore. There was nothing intuitive or spontaneous about the images he made; they were imagined beforehand and carefully constructed. Elaborate and time-consuming measures were frequently involved—cleaning up the factory, moving equipment around, erecting scaffolding to secure the best vantage point and so on. Sievers preferred working at night when the factory floor could be rearranged more readily, transformed into something akin to a film set and animated through the creative use of lighting. He stated that: The majority of my work in factories was carried out at nighttime in order to eliminate unsightly background or the dreadful sawtooth corrugated iron roof structures. Working out of darkness and illuminating the scene with my own few light sources gave me the dramatic effects I wanted, almost invariably by using strong side and weak front lighting, ideas quite unoriginal because they were stolen directly from Rembrandt (1988). The extraordinary degree of control Sievers exerted in the construction of his images is revealed in his account of Control Cabin Operator, Hot Reversing Mill, Alcoa, Point Henry, Geelong, Victoria (1970). He wanted to combine two separate elements in one photograph: the aluminium ingot travelling through the reversing mill, and the operator sitting in his cabin. It was, he said, ‘a crazy idea’ that required full cooperation from factory staff—operators, foremen and managers—for its execution. The glass was removed from the cabin and a forklift was used to raise Sievers and his equipment to the required level. This ideas-based approach was behind the making of his most famous work, Gears for the Mining Industry, Vickers Ruwolt, Burnley, Victoria (1967), which was used on the cover of his 1999 book and was later selected by Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Gears for the Mining Industry, Vickers Ruwolt, Burnley, Victoria, 1967 gelatin silver photograph; 24.6 x 19.0 cm nla.pic-vn3427959

Australia Post for a stamp marking the 150th anniversary of the invention of photography. Sievers gave the following commentary on the image: I know this may remind you of Fritz Lang’s [film] Metropolis. At the time, the connection never occurred to me, yet this photograph too is pure fantasy. In reality they were just two halves of a big mining gear lying on a dirty factory floor: wonderful shapes but quite unattractive.

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Gears for the Mining Industry, Vickers Ruwolt, Burnley, Victoria, 1967 gelatin silver photograph; 49.6 x 39.3 cm nla.pic-an21464323

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However, it proved to be a classical example of what can happen when one’s imagination is set to work. I thought I might be able to create a symbolic photograph of Australia’s engineering skills to show the world outside that Australia was not merely a continent of raw materials. So I moved into the factory around seven in the evening and started the long process of tidying up, moving, arranging and setting up meticulous lighting without interfering with the factory’s normal production. There was a foreman and an engineer with me and a crane to stand one half upright then suspend the other above it in an inverted position. Finally the engineer was asked to measure the teeth of the gears—technically quite a dubious performance, but added to give an idea of scale (1988). As this account reveals there is a paradoxical, even ironic, aspect to Gears for the Mining Industry. While it might symbolise Australia’s engineering and manufacturing skills, the scene Sievers created is fantastical—or, in his own words, ‘a fake’. The gears do not, and cannot, work in the configuration realised for the photograph. Although Sievers’ working processes were time consuming and exacting, his photographic technique was straightforward. John Gollings noted in an article in Lumiere in March–April 1972 that Sievers had two cameras: ‘a battered 4 x 5 Calumet view camera and a Mamiya Press with a roll film holder. His only accessories were a polarising filter for colour work and a red filter for black and white’. Sievers stressed that he did not utilise any special techniques in the darkroom, ‘everything is stock standard if only meticulous in execution’. The average assignment required around 20 negatives. Another highly successful strand of Sievers’ industrial work built on his love for what can be described as ‘the thing itself’. It encompasses photographs both of machines and their mass-produced products that exclude any reference to either a human presence or a human dimension. What is stressed are the beauty and functionality of objects in all their diversity—a stone crusher, gears, storage tanks, a sand slinger, a stack of paper, wool bobbins, groups of bronze pipes and castings. All are given a rapt kind of attention and rendered with exactitude. These photographs have a venerable history that began in the nineteenth

Unknown photographer The First Locomotive Manufactured at the Government Railway Workshops, Adelaide, South Australia, 1875 albumen photograph; 26.0 x 35.4 cm nla.pic-an22982141

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Dunlop Tyre Manufacturing, Bayswater, Victoria, 1969 gelatin silver photograph; 19.3 x 24.8 cm nla.pic-vn3299069

century when the latest engineering marvels were pictured, and continued into the twentieth century and the machine age. Sievers’ work has much in common with that of American modernist photographers such as Charles Sheeler and Margaret Bourke White who produced clean, sharp images of modern industrial subjects. In Sievers’ own assessment, the relationship between ‘man and machine’ was the touchstone of his contribution to industrial photography and the crux of his originality. He admired fine craftsmanship and through his images of workers argued for the

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dignity of labour. This is often expressed in terms of the contact between the workman and his tools or the products with whose manufacture he was involved. Take as an example, the worker in the Associated Pulp and Paper Mills who gently guides the enormous roll of paper into position. Or another workman who inspects a ball bearing to ensure that it has been manufactured to the highest possible standard. In Sievers’ own words, the purpose of his image of a boring mill operator at Marweight Engineering was ‘to show the skilled engineer and the machine combining to produce high quality

engineering’. Men such as these—their face and hands often touched with light—are represented as heroes of the modern age. The photograph that Sievers believed best encapsulated his ideas about the value of skilled labour was Employee Making Rope with Ropeway at Miller Rope, Brunswick, Victoria (1962) (it was selected as the cover for Jorge Calado’s monograph published in Portugal in 2000). He explained its significance as ‘an illustration of [his] faith’ and continued: … the dignity of man stares you in the face. A ‘ropewalk’ like this had then just been discovered in North Africa, where the Romans built it some two thousand years earlier. In some factories I was considered to be completely mad. Imagine a photographer carrying a razor with him and asking a worker to have a shave before being photographed. Sometimes I asked them to wear my own, somewhat cleaner shirt and once I was almost kicked out of a factory making cheese for export when I demanded a clean up of black fingernails. Nothing like this happened here because the bosses loved ropes and whoever helped produce them; they were all ex-members of the Australian or British navies. The workers Sievers photographed are rarely named and he was not concerned with their individual character. In an approach that is reminiscent of German photographer August Sander’s groundbreaking Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Worker Operating Metal Lathe, Marweight Engineering, Melbourne, Victoria, 1968 gelatin silver photograph; 19.7 x 24.6 cm nla.pic-vn4551493

project, Citizens of the Twentieth Century (1909–1930s), he identified his subjects only by their occupation: engineer, operator, miner and so on. The men he photographed embody particular characteristics associated with their areas of work; coal miners depicted in closeup are earthy and rugged, while white-robed machinists personify efficiency. Sievers also shared Sander’s analytical, impersonal style that belonged to the New Objectivity movement. While Sievers was very insistent that the dignity of the worker was a fundamental concern, a survey of his extensive output reveals that images dealing with the subject are in fact a very small minority and are mainly confined to the early years of his practice. By the mid1960s he was faced with the loss of his favoured subject because of the application of new technologies and the advent of an increasingly mechanised and computerised work environment. The centrepiece

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of modern manufacturing was the assembly line and the reality for workers involved in mass production was highly repetitive operations. There is nothing inspiring about Sievers’ images of workers on the production line, whether it is women checking for imperfections in runs of fabric or packing tins of shoe polish. Indeed, it can be argued that Sievers photographed manufacturing at a key moment of transition as skilled workers became increasingly irrelevant and then were displaced altogether. He recalled that by the 1960s factories, which were once filled with many people, had become almost empty, commonly run by a computer system and only a few operators. The halcyon days of Sievers’ architectural and industrial photography were the 1950s and 1960s. He continued to work in the 1970s and early 1980s but his specialisation narrowed further to focus on the mining and oil industries that had earlier been only one aspect of his practice. In the 1950s he took on commissions from the major mining companies including BHAS (Broken Hill Associated Smelters), which resulted in the beautifully designed book The Fabulous Hill (1960). Its aim was to provide a non-technical account of Broken Hill’s base metal industries, giving ‘a brief image of its romantic background and present worldwide significance’. Other assignments took Sievers to Weipa on Cape York, where he photographed Comalco’s bauxite mining, and to coalfields around the country. In the mid-1950s Sievers made an impressive series on Mobil’s state-of-the-art oil refinery at Altona, Victoria, whose construction was undertaken by an American company (he admired their ‘organisation, elimination of wastage and their efficiency’). As he explained it, he ‘did not relinquish industrial photography’, he ‘merely transferred it from the factory halls into the open air’. He continued: Working for the mining industry was the perfect solution for my love of the open, for traveling, learning about and seeing remote places, [and] meeting unusual people of many different nations. Sievers’ early photographs for the mining industry were mainly in black and white but in the early 1970s he began to work primarily in colour, which offered a new range of creative options (he first used colour in the 1950s). Another pre-condition for his photography in the mining and oil industries was the introduction of the medium format hand-held camera, and faster and better film. These technological

developments made it possible to work with greater ease and speed, and to work in areas that were otherwise difficult to physically access. His approach to mining was more impersonal than his industrial photography and he revelled in scenes that went beyond human scale and inspired awe. This viewpoint, which celebrated the vastness and remoteness of the sites, was also evident in work by fellow European photographer, Richard Woldendorp who was based in Perth.9 Sievers’ Comalco Bauxite Stockpiling at Dawn, Weipa, Cape York, North Queensland (1971) is a romantic image in which the bauxite, bathed in early morning light, is in the shape of a pyramid. The association with an ancient civilisation reinforces the grandeur of the mining enterprise. The photographs of Shell’s semi-submersible drilling rig, Nymphea in Bass Strait, provided a fitting conclusion to Sievers’ long career. Richard Woldendorp (1927– ) Mount Whaleback Iron Ore Deposit, Mount Newman, Western Australia, 2003 direct positive colour photograph; 23.9 x 35.5 cm nla.pic-vn3102377 Courtesy Richard Woldendorp

'Curtains of Fire', Shell's Drilling Rig, the 'Nymphea' in Bass Strait, Victoria (1983) was one of the most stunning photographs he ever produced; it is deep red, full of theatre and conveys an extraordinary sense of scale.

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Sievers described the circumstances behind the image in some detail: Approaching the rig I realized that a testing would look most spectacular at night—so we just had to wait, not even certain whether a firing would be possible. And then suddenly a long tongue of flame pierced the night sky with a roar, huge curtains of water were formed to protect the crew on the drilling rig and my infidel soul prayed to Wotan or whatever god was on duty that night for my unsteady hand-held camera to stand by me now. For once I gave that photograph a title, although I am not sure whether Curtains of Fire is the correct one. It was dramatically Wagnerian and very grandiose—perhaps the entry of the gods into Valhalla? And then, just as suddenly, the flame flickered out, the water curtains subsided, the noise stopped with almost total darkness and silence around us. It was finished, over. Here, the human dimension is all but subsumed into an operatic display of the power and might of industrial forces. Wolfgang Sievers was far more than an impartial recorder of the achievements of industry and mining. He was highly adept at representing his clients’ interests and was a forceful advocate for their respective sectors. This raises important ethical and moral issues, some of which Sievers himself began to publicly acknowledge at the end of his career. In 1988, as part of his life review phase, he reflected critically on his position as a photographer: I am quite aware of the moral problems confronting a responsible photographer in industry. Should he be working for multinational companies at all if he believes—as I do—that Australia should have retained 51% ownership of its resources? Should he use his skills to hide the terrible pollution and despoliation of our country—as I have? In creating beautiful images I have glamorized industries which have often been heedless of their sacred trust to use resources wisely and take care in the interest of future generations. In my defence, so far, I have found no valid answer to these problems. Sievers worked for some of the largest mining companies operating in Australia and at some of their largest sites where the landscape was irrevocably altered. Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Comalco Bauxite Stockpiling at Dawn, Weipa, Cape York, North Queensland, 1971 gelatin silver photograph; 24.9 x 19.3 cm nla.pic-an23289186

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It was not only pollution and despoliation of the natural environment, which he referred to, that resulted from mining activities in Australia. They also impacted on Aboriginal people living in areas rich with mineral resources. The only time Sievers photographed Aborigines was in 1957 at Weipa on Cape York in northern Queensland when he was on assignment for Comalco, which had established a bauxite mine there. In an atypical move he took a number of photographs that were more documentary in style. They depict the activities of Aboriginal people living at the Methodist Mission—going to the shop or to church, receiving health care and so on. The photograph he titled Aboriginal ‘Black Madonna’, Weipa, Cape York, North Queensland, which represents a young Aboriginal woman holding a baby, is an overwhelmingly positive image of maternal care. The woman looks directly at Sievers, smiling openly. As Sievers’ title indicates, the photograph operates at a symbolic level, inviting comparison with work by documentary photographer Axel Poignant taken in Western Australia a decade earlier. The photography Sievers undertook for the giant mining and oil companies—Australian and multinational—upheld their activities and values but he expressed some radical beliefs in other areas of his life. In 1970 his actions brought him to the attention of ASIO once more when, according to an Intercept Report on his file, he sought material on the Vietnam Moratorium campaign to display in the showcase window of his business in Melbourne. A gruesome Life magazine photograph of a soldier holding part of a dead body was accompanied by the following statement: I Wolfgang Sievers, victim of Nazi persecution, prisoner of the Gestapo, volunteer AIF and RAAF 1939, volunteer Australian Army 1941–45, PROTEST against this undeclared war, against conscription by lottery, against imprisonment of conscientious objectors whose just stand has been laid down at the Nuremberg Trials to be the duty of all men. The declaration of his anti-war beliefs apparently cost him a number of major clients. In the last years of his life Sievers ceased his photographic work and devoted himself to different aspects of his German heritage, making

several visits to Germany. He played an important role in the mounting of an exhibition held in Berlin in 1992 to honour the work of his father, Professor Dr Johannes Sievers; it included photographs of Schinkel’s architecture Wolfgang Sievers had taken decades earlier in 1937. Some of the photographs of the Schloss Glienicke’s interiors were used as an aid in the reconstruction of sections of the building that had been destroyed in the Second World War.10 In the 1990s he began research on the lives of Nazi war criminals who had found refuge in Australia, gathering evidence for the Australian Government’s investigation into war crimes and for the Simon Wiesenthal Jewish Documentation Center in Vienna. He also donated his works to different organisations to raise money for social justice and civil liberties causes.

above: Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Methodist Mission at Weipa, Cape York, North Queensland with a Wonderful Hungarian Doctor who was not Allowed to Practise, 1957 gelatin silver photograph; 20.5 x 19.7 cm nla.pic-an23137854 right: Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Aboriginal ‘Black Madonna’, Weipa, Cape York, North Queensland, 1957 gelatin silver photograph; 20.0 x 25.0 cm nla.pic-an13908897-12

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In an interview for The Australian Jewish News on 20 September 1991, he explained his motivations as follows: There is still a link with the country I was brought up in. I still feel that I am a victim of persecution and also have some guilt feelings … To me, freedom and tolerance and understanding of racism … [are] the most basic thing[s] in life. My great task is to educate the younger generation that the wartime criminals can’t get away with it and will eventually be brought to justice.

Legacy

Wolfgang Sievers’ approach to professional photography was very creative and he was extremely adept in responding to his clients’ aspirations. His images can be seen as transformational in the sense that the subject depicted became something else—a symbol. The lynchpin in the transformative process was Sievers’ own vision that built on his command of the photographic language and commitment to achieving a dramatic impact. In an interview for the Australian Financial Review on 24 July 1981, he said that: Of course the subjects are often dull, but that is what makes the work so exciting. To take a dull subject and create a successful dramatic shot is what good industrial photography is all about … A dredge is an incredibly boring subject. But take a picture … at dawn or sunset, with a thunder storm breaking above it, and you get a shot that stands out. However, in order to understand both the distinctive nature of his contribution and its full significance a deeper context is required—that of modernism, especially as it relates to photographic practice and Australian photographic history. When Sievers arrived in Australia in 1938 modern photography had not yet been enshrined due to the persistence of Pictorialism with its soft focus, old world effects and predilection for generalised, timeless subject matter. Modernist practitioners were relatively few in number, headed by Max Dupain and Olive Cotton in Sydney (Sievers dismissed Cotton’s work

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out of hand), Athol Shmith in Melbourne (he specialised in fashion and celebrity portraiture), and Anglo–Swedish photographer Axel Poignant, who was based in Perth. Sydney photographer Harold Cazneaux, who had played a crucial role in the development of modern photography, was coming to the end of his career. There were cross-overs between Sievers’ work and that of his Australian modernist peers. Dupain, for example, was an excellent architectural photographer who enjoyed a long, fruitful professional relationship with architect Harry Seidler (another European émigré who arrived in 1948). David Moore, who belonged to a younger generation, excelled in the field of architectural photography as well. However, Sievers’ approach differed from that of his Australian peers in a number of crucial ways. While they made a distinction between their professional and exhibition photography (what we would now call ‘personal’ photography), Sievers never did. Moreover, the concerns they explored in their personal work had no corollary in Sievers’ practice. Australian modernists dealt with what is commonly regarded as distinctively ‘Australian subject matter’—the bush, the beach and the landscape—and with peculiarly Australian features such as the quality of light. The latter was a crucial element in Cazneaux‘s and Dupain’s formulation of an Australian aesthetic but it was not a concern for Sievers. Indeed, for much of his photography, especially of industry, he chose to work with artificial and theatrical lighting rather than natural light. Sievers’ work was conspicuous in its detachment and impersonal nature. He developed his own vision and immediately recognisable style but neither was the consequence of a desire for self-expression. His photographs were, of course, always produced for others—his clients— and were not invested with subjectivity in the manner of the personal photography created by his Australian-born peers. Another crucial difference stemmed from divergent views of modernity. Australian modernists were often ambivalent about the processes of modernisation that were rapidly transforming Australian society, whereas Sievers was not. For Dupain, Cotton, Poignant and others, modernity was underpinned by a sense of loss, frequently represented in terms of a separation from nature and its vital forces. Sievers’ work, on the other hand, did not equivocate. Its embrace of modernity—whether in the fields of architecture, industry or mining—was enthusiastic and certain.

The shape of Sievers’ photography was not simply determined by ‘difference’, that is, by his German origins and his first-hand experience of European modernism and the New Photography movement. Rather, his photography represented a complex amalgam of his German heritage and Australian experiences, a kind of double vision that is unique to the position of a migrant and outsider. Like other European émigrés working in Australia, Sievers brought an internationalist vision to his photography, which found expression in an international style. His architectural and industrial photographs, in particular, look like they could have been taken anywhere in the industrial world. And yet, this is not to categorise them as internationalist, for their reality is more nuanced than that. Sievers passionately identified with Australia and celebrated the different kinds of freedom it offered; for example, he felt able to work more creatively in Australian workplaces because he found them more egalitarian than in class-conscious Germany. His photography conveyed a well-articulated nationalistic agenda—playing its part in positioning Australia as a modern, industrial economy and promoting the quality of many of its products for export. Given the complexity of the interplay between internationalism and Australian-ness, it is not surprising that Dupain affectionately cursed Sievers for being ‘too bloody German’ and Sievers returned the criticism by claiming that Dupain was ‘too insular’ (he was scandalised by the fact that Dupain rarely travelled overseas, making only one trip to Europe in his life). Both Sievers and Dupain were honoured with international recognition when they were awarded distinctions by the Fédération Internationale de l’Art Photgraphique in 1962. A consequence of Sievers’ European-based approach, which put art in the service of industry, was that his work did not find its way onto the exhibition circuit that had originated in the Pictorial salons of the early twentieth century and which sustained Australian modernist personal photographic practice. The principal venue for Sievers’ work was trade exhibitions. He mounted only one independent exhibition while working as a professional photographer—New Visions in Photography, which he held jointly with Helmut Newton at the Federal Hotel in Melbourne in 1953. Fellow German Gerard Herbst designed the poster. Newton was represented with fashion, portraiture and theatre photography, and Sievers with architectural and industrial subjects. The photographers’ joint statement explained that

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their aim was ‘to demonstrate through actual work done, the potential of industrial and fashion photography as a means of better promotion and bigger sales in business today’. In the 1970s Sievers’ photography began to be collected by art museums and in 1976 was included in the group exhibition Modern Australian Photographs at the National Gallery of Victoria. By the 1980s it had finally begun to attract considerable scholarly and popular attention; it was featured in the National Gallery of Australia’s touring exhibition The Life and Work of Wolfgang Sievers in 1991 and in recent decades has been included routinely in major group exhibitions of Australian photography held in libraries, art museums and galleries.11 In recognition of his achievements in the fields of industrial and architectural photography Sievers was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2002. While Sievers’ output did not fit readily into conventional narratives of Australian art photography, its ‘difference’ has been greatly beneficial, helping expand ideas about creative photographic practice and modernism. This seems less of an issue these days in light of the broader appreciation of modernism as encompassing a myriad of responses to the conditions of modernity.

above: Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Poster Designed by Gerard Herbst for the Wolfgang Sievers/Helmut Newton New Visions in Photography Exhibition in Melbourne, Victoria, 1953 gelatin silver photograph; 47.4 x 36.8 cm nla.pic-an24412516 top left: Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Entrance Panel at Wolfgang Sievers and Helmut Newton’s New Visions in Photography Exhibition Held at the Federal Hotel, Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria, 1953 gelatin silver photograph; 17.0 x 24.6 cm nla.pic-vn3305265

The Modern Age

This book represents only a tiny fraction of Wolfgang Sievers’ vast output but ranges across his main areas of practice in the architectural, industrial, mining and oil sectors. What is clear throughout is his great command of his medium and its language. During his long, extraordinarily productive career Sievers produced images that mapped crucial changes in industry and the workplace brought about by successive technological innovations in the decades after the Second World War. Much of what he photographed no longer exists materially, the high-rise buildings, factories, plant and machinery have disappeared or become superseded. Even more profound is the loss of something far less tangible, the faith in the modern age and its spirit that underpins Sievers’ work. This has been vanquished through the rise of more complex and contradictory attitudes to technology, the occurrence of the Exxon Valdez and Gulf of Mexico oil spills and countless other environmental catastrophes, and the phenomenon of global warming. Sievers’ photography declares its faith in technology as a beneficent force. This, more than anything, relates the images to their own times, not our own.

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Endnotes 1

National Archives of Australia: Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, ‘Wolfgang Georg Sievers’, 1939–1970, NAA: A6119, 2889.

2

All quotes from Wolfgang Sievers are derived from his commentary written to accompany his photographs in the author’s National Gallery of Australia exhibition The Life and Work of Wolfgang Sievers (1991), a copy of which is held at the National Library of Australia, and an unpublished interview with the author (1988).

3

After Johannes Sievers’ death in 1969 Wolfgang Sievers arranged for his pieces of Schinkel’s mahogany furniture to go to Schinkel’s Summer House in the grounds of Schloss Charlottenburg.

4

They were Mr Pittman, head of an agricultural college, photographer Axel Poignant and Dr John Reynolds, Professor of History at the University of Western Australia.

5

Margaret Garlake, ‘A Minor Language? Three Émigré Sculptors and Their Strategies of Assimilation’, in Shulamith Behr and Marian Malet (eds), Arts in Exile in Britain 1933–1945: Politics and Cultural Identity. Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, 2005, p. 168.

6

For information on Mark Strizic, see ‘Mark Strizic’s Melbourne: In Search of Lost Time’, in Mark Strizic, Mark Strizic: Melbourne—Marvellous to Modern. Melbourne: Thames and Hudson, in association with the State Library of Victoria, 2009, p. 7. For information on Helmut Newton, see Guy Featherstone, ‘Helmut Newton’s Australian Years’, The La Trobe Journal, no.76, Spring 2005, pp. 105–123; and Helen Ennis, ‘Don’t Look Back: Helmut Newton’s Australian Years’, Photofile, no.52, December 1997, pp. 10–15. Austrian-born photographer Margaret Michaelis established a studio in Sydney after arriving in Australia in 1939 and later moved to Melbourne; see Helen Ennis, Margaret Michaelis: Love, Loss and Photography. Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 2005.

7

The printer was Terry Ovenden. Others who worked as printers for Sievers were Deidre Cooke and Rochelle Stone. Sievers trained Norman Ikin under an assisted repatriation scheme after the war and he became a partner in the business, running it while Sievers was overseas in 1955. Ikin was killed in a car accident in 1962.

8

See Isobel Crombie, ‘“Industralia”: Wolfgang Sievers’, in Ann Stephens, Philip Goad and Andrew McNamara (eds), Modern Times: The Untold Story of Modernism in Australia. Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, 2008.

9

For a more recent response, see Edward Burtynsky’s Western Australian work in Helen Ennis, ‘Edward Burtynsky’s Minescapes: An Australian Perspective’, in Ray Coffey (ed.), Edward Burtynsky: Australian Minescapes. Perth: Western Australian Museum, 2009.

10

Sievers bequeathed two pieces by Karl Friedrich Schinkel to Schloss Glienicke in Berlin; they were returned to Germany after his death. Additional examples of furniture in his collection were donated to the National Gallery of Victoria.

11

Jorge Calado curated a major one-person exhibition of Sievers’ work in 2000. Linha de Vida: A Fotografia de Wolfgang Sievers 1933–1993, which included a strong component of his Portuguese photography, was held at the Arquivo Fotografico Municipal de Lisboa.

Photographs 1933–1985

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Germany

Sievers is … one of the few photographers of the younger generation in whom are combined complete mastery of technique with artistic talent. Erich Balg, 25 June 1937

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Old Frankfurt, Germany, 1937 gelatin silver photograph; 39.4 x 44.0 cm nla.pic-an24861663

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007)

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007)

Birch Trees in the Park of Schloss Glienicke Near Berlin, Germany, 1937

Poverty in Berlin, Germany, 1933

gelatin silver photograph; 22.3 x 28.9 cm nla.pic-an24860455

gelatin silver photograph; 29.2 x 36.0 cm nla.pic-an24849798

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Asta von Borch, Student at the Contempora School for Applied Arts, Berlin, Germany, 1937 gelatin silver photograph; 29.2 x 36.7 cm nla.pic-an24836537

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Australia

I left my native country … because I cannot and will not live without freedom.

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) French Fashion Models at Geiger’s Handbag Shop, 248 Collins Street Opposite George’s, Melbourne, Victoria, 1946 gelatin silver photograph; 35.3 x 49.3 cm nla.pic-an24412234

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Portrait of the Writer Jean Campbell in her East Melbourne Flat, 1956 gelatin silver photograph; 49.6 x 36.5 cm nla.pic-an24429780

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) The Conductor Dean Dixon, Melbourne Town Hall, Victoria, 1962 gelatin silver photograph; 38.4 x 49.3 cm nla.pic-an24431329

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007)

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007)

Prestige Material Design, Gerard Herbst, Model at Sandringham Beach, Victoria, 1950

The Designer Gerard Herbst with his Design of Prestige Material at Red Bluff, Victoria, 1950

gelatin silver photograph; 36.0 x 32.4 cm nla.pic-an25102520

gelatin silver photograph; 50.1 x 40.3 cm nla.pic-an24412430

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Country Women’s Association Meeting at Lennons Hotel, Brisbane, Queensland, 1965 type C photograph; 50.3 x 34.1 cm nla.pic-an24795475

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) On the Way to the Wedding, Methodist Mission, Weipa, Cape York, North Queensland, 1957 gelatin silver photograph; 20.4 x 19.7 cm nla.pic-an23135980

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Young Child Holds onto the Dress of a Woman, Cape York, North Queensland, 1957 gelatin silver photograph; 24.5 x 18.2 cm nla.pic-an13908897-10

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Aboriginal Family at the Most Offensive Methodist Mission Station, Weipa, Cape York, North Queensland, 1957 gelatin silver photograph; 41.9 x 40.2 cm nla.pic-an24861672

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Aboriginal Man, Woman and Child at the Methodist Mission Station, Weipa, Cape York, North Queensland, 1950–1960 gelatin silver photograph; 17.3 x 24.5 cm nla.pic-vn3291174

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Architecture

To photograph … modern architecture … one had to be overcome by a great feeling of excitement.

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) [Looking Toward the Sky] between Two Buildings in William Street, Melbourne, Victoria, 1968 gelatin silver photograph; 24.5 x 19.8 cm nla.pic-vn3359899

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Exterior of AMP Offices, Melbourne, Victoria, 1970 gelatin silver photograph; 21.0 x 25.0 cm nla.pic-an13994702-25

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Exterior of AMP Offices, Melbourne, Victoria, 1970 gelatin silver photograph; 19.5 x 25.3 cm nla.pic-vn3967962

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Foyer of AMP Offices, Melbourne, Victoria, 1970 gelatin silver photograph; 21.0 x 25.0 cm nla.pic-an13994702-12

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Interior of Capitol Theatre, Capitol House, Melbourne, Victoria, Ceiling Designed by Marion Mahony Griffin, 1975 type C photograph; 21.0 x 25.0 cm nla.pic-an14031805-21

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Construction of the Former BHP House, 140 William Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Architects Yuncken Freeman, 1971 gelatin silver photograph; 25.2 x 19.5 cm nla.pic-an23263861

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) BHP House, Basement Steel Construction, Corner William and Bourke Streets, Melbourne, Victoria, 1969 gelatin silver photograph; 50.4 x 40.0 cm nla.pic-an25071076

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Olympic Swimming Pool, Melbourne, Victoria, 1956 gelatin silver photograph; 48.4 x 37.8 cm nla.pic-an24968141

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Sidney Myer Music Bowl, View of the Seats, Melbourne, Victoria, 1959 gelatin silver photograph; 21.0 x 25.0 cm nla.pic-an14124904-5

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007)

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007)

Comalco Aluminium Used in the Construction of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Architect Roy Grounds, 1968 [7]

Comalco Aluminium Used in the Construction of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Architect Roy Grounds, 1968 [18]

gelatin silver photograph; 19.6 x 19.6 cm nla.pic-vn4306667

gelatin silver photograph; 24.6 x 19.8 cm nla.pic-vn4306828

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) BHP House, Corner Bourke and William Streets, Melbourne, Victoria, 1973 gelatin silver photograph; 21.1 x 30.0 cm nla.pic-vn3050231

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Engineering Buildings at Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Architects Bates, Smart and McCutcheon, 1962 gelatin silver photograph; 19.7 x 24.2 cm nla.pic-vn4192388

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) The William J. Young Laboratory (Physical Laboratory Building) University of Melbourne, Victoria, 1958 gelatin silver photograph; 21.0 x 25.0 cm nla.pic-an13995377-1

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) [Close Up View of Clock and Wooden Ceiling of the Mezzanine Level Study Area at] Geelong Teachers College, Geelong, Victoria, Architect David McGlashan, 1985 gelatin silver photograph; 24.3 x 19.8 cm nla.pic-vn3313052

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007)

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007)

‘Stanhill’, Designed by Architect Frederick Romberg, at Queens Road, Melbourne, Victoria, 1951 [1]

‘Stanhill’, Designed by Architect Frederick Romberg,

gelatin silver photograph; 49.3 x 35.9 cm nla.pic-an24459216

gelatin silver photograph; 50.1 x 39.5 cm nla.pic-an24459245

at Queens Road, Melbourne, Victoria, 1951 [2]

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Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) ‘Hillstan’ (Destroyed), Pt Nepean Road, Melbourne, Victoria, 1951 gelatin silver photograph; 37.4 x 49.1 cm nla.pic-an25066224

93

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Bruck Mills Guest House, Wangaratta, Victoria, Architect Robyn Boyd, 1956 gelatin silver photograph; 24.0 x 19.3 cm nla.pic-vn4087648

94

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) John Reed’s Study at ‘Heide’, Templestowe, Victoria, Architect David McGlashan, 1968 gelatin silver photograph; 19.2 x 24.2 cm nla.pic-vn3313008

95

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Interior of ‘Heide’, John and Sunday Reed’s House in Templestowe, Victoria, 1968 gelatin silver photograph; 19.3 x 24.5 cm nla.pic-vn4559174

96

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) [People Walking Down the Front Steps of the] Savoy Plaza Hotel, Spencer Street, Melbourne, Victoria, 1965 type C photograph; 25.3 x 20.2 cm nla.pic-vn3413235

97

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) [Reception Area of] Lennons Hotel, Brisbane, Queensland, 1965 type C photograph; 20.6 x 25.4 cm nla.pic-vn3311445

98

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) [Four Businessmen Dining in a Room at the] Menzies Hotel, Melbourne, Victoria, 1965 type C photograph; 25.3 x 20.1 cm nla.pic-vn3314550

99

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) [Guest Room in] Lennons Hotel, Brisbane, Queensland, 1965 type C photograph; 20.4 x 25.3 cm nla.pic-vn3311463

100

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) [Entrance to] the New Colonial Mutual Life Building, Corner of Collins and Elizabeth Streets, Melbourne, Victoria, 1963 gelatin silver photograph; 24.4 x 19.4 cm nla.pic-vn3267625

101

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Public Counter and Office in the AMP Insurance Company Building, 51 Queen Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Architects Bates, Smart and McCutcheon, 1959 gelatin silver negative; 9.9 x 12.5 cm nla.pic-an25012513

102

103

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Shell House, Bourke and Williams Streets, Melbourne, Victoria, Architects Buchan, Laird & Buchan, 1960 gelatin silver photograph; 19.4 x 24.4 cm nla.pic-vn3085907

104

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) [A Meeting Area in the Offices of the] Eagle Star Building, Bourke Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Architects Yuncken Freeman, 1972 gelatin silver photograph; 18.8 x 25.0 cm nla.pic-vn3486756

105

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Amenities Room, New Zealand Insurance Company Building, Bourke Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Architects Bates, Smart and McCutcheon, 1961 gelatin silver photograph; 19.8 x 24.5 cm nla.pic-vn3971245

106

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) BHP House Offices, Melbourne, Victoria, Architects Yuncken Freeman, 1973 type C photograph; 20.0 x 25.2 cm nla.pic-vn3506617

107

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) [Tables and Chairs in the Offices of the] Eagle Star Building, Bourke Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Architects Yuncken Freeman, 1972 type C photograph; 18.7 x 24.5 cm nla.pic-vn3504363

108

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) New Broken Hill Entrance to Administration Broken Hill, New South Wales, 1959 gelatin silver photograph; 24.8 x 19.4 cm nla.pic-an22910808

109

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Bar at the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria, 123 Queen Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Architects Bates, Smart and McCutcheon, 1961 gelatin silver negative; 10.0 x 12.5 cm nla.pic-an25043980

110

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Interior of the Batman Hotel, Melbourne, Victoria, Architect Robin Boyd, 1961 gelatin silver photograph; 19.4 x 24.1 cm nla.pic-vn3998451

111

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) [Bar at the] Hotel Australia, Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria, 1969 gelatin silver photograph; 19.1 x 24.4 cm nla.pic-vn3309872

112

Industry

A successful dramatic shot is what good industrial photography is all about.

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) [Tank 9025], Mobil Oil Refinery, Port Stanvac, South Australia, 1975 gelatin silver photograph; 25.3 x 19.7 cm nla.pic-vn3419328

113

114

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Morgards Hammer for Mining Industry, Vickers Ruwolt, Burnley, Victoria, 1962 gelatin silver photograph; 19.8 x 24.6 cm nla.pic-vn3427897

115

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Laboratory Stone Crusher, Vickers Ruwolt, Burnley, Victoria, 1968 gelatin silver photograph; 19.7 x 24.6 cm nla.pic-vn3428012

116

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Large Storage Tank at Mobil’s Stanvac Oil Refinery, Altona, Victoria, 1956 gelatin silver photograph; 25.1 x 19.4 cm nla.pic-vn3419889

117

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Associated Pulp and Paper Mills, Burnie, Tasmania, 1962 gelatin silver photograph; 24.0 x 19.0 cm nla.pic-an23356017

118

119

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007)

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007)

Vickers Ruwolt Rotary Cement Mill, Burnley, Victoria, 1969

Gears and Housing by Vickers Ruwolt, Burnley, Victoria, 1971

gelatin silver photograph; 24.4 x 19.8 cm nla.pic-vn3427934

gelatin silver photograph; 19.6 x 24.9 cm nla.pic-vn3428810

120

121

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Sand Slinger, Vickers Ruwolt, Burnley, Victoria, 1968 gelatin silver photograph; 19.6 x 24.3 cm nla.pic-vn3427821

122

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) [Plant Pipelines and Storage Tanks with Towers in the Background at the Mobil] Stanvac Oil Refinery, Altona, Victoria, 1956 gelatin silver photograph; 24.9 x 19.0 cm nla.pic-vn3419873

123

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) [Storage Tanks in Front of the Cracking Tower at the Mobil] Stanvac Oil Refinery, Altona, Victoria, 1956 gelatin silver photograph; 24.2 x 18.3 cm nla.pic-vn3419822

124

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007)

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007)

Pipelines at the Mobil [Stanvac] Oil Refinery, Altona, Victoria, 1956

Night View of Storage Tanks and Pipelines at the Mobil [Stanvac] Oil Refinery, Altona, Victoria, 1956

gelatin silver photograph; 24.4 x 19.8 cm nla.pic-vn4804063

gelatin silver photograph; 24.8 x 19.0 cm nla.pic-vn3418812

125

126

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Mobil Lube Oil Refinery, Port Stanvac, South Australia, 1975 gelatin silver photograph; 19.5 x 24.9 cm nla.pic-vn3419004

127

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Shell Chemical Plant, Sydney, New South Wales, 1961 gelatin silver photograph; 25.0 x 19.5 cm nla.pic-vn3415537

128

129

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007)

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007)

Sulphuric Acid Plant, Electrolytic Industries, Risdon, Tasmania, 1959

Electrolytic Zinc Sulphuric Acid Plant, Risdon, Tasmania, 1959

gelatin silver photograph; 49.9 x 39.5 cm nla.pic-an24430022

gelatin silver photograph; 24.2 x 19.5 cm nla.pic-vn4281674

130

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Construction of the South Eastern Purification Plant, Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works, Carrum, Victoria, 1974 [15] gelatin silver photograph; 24.6 x 18.9 cm nla.pic-vn3417371

131

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Construction of the South Eastern Purification Plant, Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works, Carrum, Victoria, 1974 [27] gelatin silver photograph; 25.1 x 19.1 cm nla.pic-vn3417616

132

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Construction of the South Eastern Purification Plant, Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works, Carrum, Victoria, 1974 [38] gelatin silver photograph; 19.2 x 24.5 cm nla.pic-vn3417710

133

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) [Exterior of the Cement Plant], Victorian Portland Cement, Geelong, Victoria, 1964 gelatin silver photograph; 19.0 x 24.0 cm nla.pic-vn3457430

134

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Coal Trucks About to be Loaded, Belambi Coal Mine, New South Wales, 1985 gelatin silver photograph; 19.5 x 24.5 cm nla.pic-an22966188

135

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) BHAS, Pt Pirie, South Australia, 1967 gelatin silver photograph; 19.3 x 24.7 cm nla.pic-an23185330

136

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) BHAS Diesel Electric Power Generating Plant, Broken Hill, New South Wales, 1959 gelatin silver photograph; 19.4 x 25.0 cm nla.pic-an22910508

137

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Potline at Comalco’s Aluminium Smelters, Bell Bay, Tasmania, 1962 gelatin silver photograph; 19.6 x 24.9 cm nla.pic-vn4281418

138

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Boiler Room at the South British Insurance Company, Melbourne, Victoria, Architects Bates, Smart and McCutcheon, 1961 gelatin silver photograph; 19.5 x 24.9 cm nla.pic-vn3060520

139

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Electrolytic Zinc, Cleaning Area, Risdon, Tasmania, 1956 gelatin silver photograph; 19.7 x 24.5 cm nla.pic-an23168048

140

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) [Skyward View of Cranes at] Stanvac Oil Refinery, Altona, Victoria, 1954 gelatin silver photograph; 19.6 x 24.5 cm nla.pic-vn3419730

141

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Associated Pulp and Paper Mills Timber Industry Near Burnie, Tasmania, 1956 gelatin silver photograph; 24.6 x 19.0 cm nla.pic-an23338108

142

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Australian Cement, Geelong, Victoria, 1962 gelatin silver photograph; 24.2 x 18.8 cm nla.pic-vn3943074

143

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Cement Mill, Vickers Ruwolt, Burnley, Victoria, 1969 gelatin silver photograph; 49.6 x 39.3 cm nla.pic-an21464058

144

145

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Westgate Bridge, Melbourne, Victoria, 1971 gelatin silver photograph; 50.3 x 40.0 cm nla.pic-an25044520

146

The Worker

… the dignity of man stares you in the face.

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Shift Change at Kelly and Lewis Engineering Works, Springvale, Victoria, 1949 gelatin silver photograph; 25.6 x 19.0 cm nla.pic-vn4549631

147

148

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Employee Making Rope with Ropeway at Miller Rope, Brunswick, Victoria, 1962 gelatin silver photograph; 24.5 x 19.5 cm nla.pic-vn4495586

149

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Associated Pulp and Paper Mills, Burnie, Tasmania, 1956 gelatin silver photograph; 50.0 x 40.4 cm nla.pic-an24429641

150

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Inspection of the Inner Ring Ball Race of a Ball Bearing at UBCO (United Ball Bearing Co.), Echuca, Victoria, 1972 gelatin silver photograph; 25.0 x 17.0 cm nla.pic-vn4806969

151

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) [Portrait of a Coal Miner at] South Bulli Coal Mines, New South Wales, 1985 type C photograph; 20.0 x 25.0 cm nla.pic-vn3415221

152

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Coal Miner, South Bulli, New South Wales, 1985 type C photograph; 20.2 x 25.3 cm nla.pic-an22964500

153

154

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Hitashi Valves from Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme, Vickers Ruwolt, Burnley, Victoria, 1967 gelatin silver photograph; 24.5 x 19.8 cm nla.pic-vn3427968

155

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Nordberg Ore Crusher for the Mining Industry, Vickers Ruwolt, Burnley, Victoria, 1969 gelatin silver photograph; 49.8 x 38.8 cm nla.pic-an24432220

156

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Vickers Ruwolt, Burnley, Victoria, 1960 gelatin silver photograph; 25.0 x 20.0 cm nla.pic-an13017086-36

157

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Control Cabin Operator, Hot Reversing Mill, Alcoa, Point Henry, Geelong, Victoria, 1970 gelatin silver photograph; 39.2 x 49.5 cm nla.pic-an24432276

158

159

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Central Control Room at Mobil’s Stanvac Oil Refinery, Altona, Victoria, 1956 gelatin silver photograph; 19.4 x 25.0 cm nla.pic-vn4804052

160

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Packing Tins of Kiwi Shoe Polish at Burnley, Victoria, 1962 gelatin silver photograph; 24.0 x 19.0 cm nla.pic-vn4551488

161

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Colortex Fabrics, Melbourne, Victoria, 1957 gelatin silver photograph; 38.7 x 49.5 cm nla.pic-an25118678

162

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Assembly Line at Ford Motors, Broadmeadows, Victoria, 1966 gelatin silver photograph; 39.2 x 49.8 cm nla.pic-an24432100

163

164

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Machinery, Yarra Falls Limited, Abbotsford, Victoria, 1960 gelatin silver photograph; 19.1 x 24.6 cm nla.pic-vn4398155

165

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Wool Bobbins at Yarra Falls Limited, Abbotsford, Victoria, 1960 gelatin silver photograph; 49.3 x 39.8 cm nla.pic-an24431205

166

167

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007)

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007)

Associated Pulp and Paper Mills Fine Paper, Burnie, Tasmania, 1962

Comalco Aluminium Castings, 1962

gelatin silver photograph; 24.4 x 19.9 cm nla.pic-an23351804

negative; 10.0 x 12.5 cm nla.pic-vn3291025

168

169

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Bronze Pipes at the Adams Bronze Foundry, Melbourne, Victoria, 1968 gelatin silver photograph; 24.1 x 19.2 cm nla.pic-an24847435

170

Mining

Working for the mining industry was the perfect solution for my love of the open …

171

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Power Station at Alcoa Coal Mine, Anglesea, Victoria, 1969 gelatin silver photograph; 19.6 x 24.5 cm nla.pic-vn3943649

172

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Stacker Reclaimer, German Creek Coal Mine, Queensland, 1985 gelatin silver photograph; 19.4 x 24.6 cm nla.pic-an22921941

173

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Stacker Reclaimer, Coal Terminal at Wollongong, New South Wales, 1985 gelatin silver photograph; 24.5 x 19.6 cm nla.pic-an22963737

174

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) Stacking Coal, Belambi Coal Mine, New South Wales, 1985 gelatin silver photograph; 19.5 x 24.3 cm nla.pic-an22966181

175

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) BHAS North Broken Hill Lead and Zinc Flotation Units, New South Wales, 1959 gelatin silver photograph; 19.8 x 24.4 cm nla.pic-an22910904

176

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007)

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007)

Drilling for Oil at Shell’s ‘Nymphea’ Oil Rig in Bass Strait, Victoria, 1983

Test Firing, Shell’s ‘Nymphea’ Oil Rig, Bass Strait, Victoria, 1983

type C photograph; 59.9 x 50.1 cm nla.pic-an24552845

type C photograph; 50.4 x 40.2 cm nla.pic-vn3059634

177

178

179

Wolfgang Sievers (1913–2007) ‘Curtains of Fire’, Shell’s Drilling Rig, the ‘Nymphea’ in Bass Strait, Victoria, 1983 type C photograph; 60.3 x 40.8 cm nla.pic-an24782273

180

Further Reading Primary Sources Heintz, Alfred, The Fabulous Hill. Melbourne, 1960. York, Barry, oral history interview with Wolfgang Sievers, 2000, Oral History Collection, National Library of Australia, TRC 4549.

Secondary Sources Annear, Judy (ed.), Photography: Art Gallery of New South Wales Collection. Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2007, pp. 136, 146, 148. Calado, Jorge, Linha de Vida: A Fotografia de Wolfgang Sievers 1933–1993 (Life Line: The Photography of Wolfgang Sievers 1933–1993). Lisbon: Departamentao de Patrimanio Cultural Arquivo Municipal de Lisboa/ Arquivo Fotografico, 2000. Crombie, Isobel, ‘Creative Interactions: Photographers of the Architecture of Frederick Romberg’, in Harriet Edquist (ed.), Frederick Romberg: The Architecture of Migration 1938–1975. Melbourne: RMIT University Press, 2001. Crombie, Isobel, ‘Wolfgang Sievers: A Great Australian Modernist Photographer’, Flash: Centre for Contemporary Photography Newsletter, August 2007. Crombie, Isobel, ‘“Industralia”: Wolfgang Sievers’, in Ann Stephens, Philip Goad and Andrew McNamara (eds), Modern Times: The Untold Story of Modernism in Australia. Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, 2008. Ennis, Helen, ‘Wolfgang Sievers and Australian photography’, paper presented at Art Association of Australia Conference, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, September 1983. Ennis, Helen, The Life and Work of Wolfgang Sievers. Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 1991. Ennis, Helen, ‘Blue Hydrangeas: Four Émigré Photographers’, in Roger Butler (ed.), The Europeans: Émigré Artists in Australia, 1930–1960. Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 1997, pp. 102–119. Ennis, Helen, ‘Wolfgang Sievers: In Perspective’, in Wolfgang Sievers, Wolfgang Sievers. Sydney: WriteLight, 1998. Ennis, Helen, Intersections: Photography, History and the National Library of Australia. Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2004. Ennis, Helen, Photography and Australia. London: Reaktion Books, 2007. Ennis, Helen, ‘Wolfgang Sievers’, Grove Art Online, 2009. Freiberg, Freda, ‘Upstaging the History of Australian Photography: The Case of Wolfgang Sievers’, Photofile, vol.6, no.1, Autumn 1988.

Gollings, John, ‘I Wolfgang’, Lumiere, March–April 1972. Groom, Linda, ‘The Dignity of Man as a Worker: The Sievers Archive’, National Library of Australia News, vol.13, no.4, January 2003. Imhoff, Robert (ed.), Fuji ACMP Australian Photographers Collection, no.2. East Roseville, NSW: Craftsman House, 1996. Jolly, Martyn, ‘Wolfgang Sievers’ Photographs: From the Future to the Past’, in Stuart Bailey (ed.), Wolfgang Sievers 1913–2007: Work. Melbourne: Glen Eira City Council, 2007. Newton, Gael, Shades of Light: Photography and Australia 1839–1988. Canberra: National Gallery of Australia and Collins Australia, 1988. Palmer, Daniel, ‘Wolfgang Sievers’, Flash: Centre for Contemporary Photography Newsletter, June–September 2004. Rmandic, Dunja, ‘Wolfgang Sievers and the Revisionism of Australian Migrant Art’, emaj, no.2, 2007. Willis, Anne-Marie, Picturing Australia: A History of Photography. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1988. Zimmer, Jenny, ‘Five Berliners in Melbourne’, Aspect, no.29/30, Autumn 1984.

181

182

Selected Exhibitions 1953, New Visions in Photography, Federal Hotel, Melbourne (with Helmut Newton) 1986, The Impact of Technology on Work in Australia, Melbourne University, Goethe Institute, Melbourne 1991, The Life and Work of Wolfgang Sievers, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (toured to Melbourne, Sydney, Wollongong, Newcastle and Broken Hill) 1999, Wolfgang Sievers: A Life, Horsham Art Gallery, Victoria 2000, Linha de Vida: A Fotografia de Wolfgang Sievers 1933–1993 (Life Line: The Photography of Wolfgang Sievers 1933–1993), Arquivo Fotografico Municipal de Lisboa (Photographic Archives of the City of Lisbon) 2000, Wolfgang Sievers: A Life, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology Gallery, Melbourne 2007, Wolfgang Sievers 1913–2007: Work, Glen Eira City Gallery, Melbourne

Index

183

Page numbers in bold refer to photographs. WS is the abbreviation used for Wolfgang Sievers.

A

Australian Financial Review, 49

Bryant & May, 19, 20, 21

The Australian Jewish News, 48

Buchan, Laird & Buchan, 102–103

Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), 4, 18, 21, 24, 46

Burnie (Tas.), 117, 141, 149, 166, 167

Adams Bronze Foundry, 168, 169

B

C

advertising photography, 12, 19

Balg, Erich, 12, 15, 56

Calado, Jorge, 41

Alcoa, 37, 157, 171

ball bearings, 150

cameras, 5, 16, 18, 22, 38, 42–43

Almkerk (ship), 18

Bates, Smart & McCutcheon, 27, 87, 101, 105, 109, 138

Campbell, Jean, 64

Aalto, Alvar, 27 Aboriginal ‘Black Madonna’, Weipa (1957 photograph), 46, 47 Aboriginal people, 46, 47, 70–73

Altona (Vic.), 34, 35, 42, 116, 122–125, 140, 158–159

Batman Hotel, Melbourne, 110

Burtynsky, Edward, 35

Canberra (ACT), 28–29, 29

aluminium, 35, 37, 84, 85, 137, 167

Bauhaus school, 11, 12, 27

Cape York (Qld). see Weipa, Cape York (Qld)

Amor, Elma, 25

bauxite mining, 42–43, 44, 45

Capitol Theatre, Melbourne, 79

AMP Insurance Company, 30, 76–78, 101

Bell Bay (Tas.), 137

Casey, Dermot, 19, 21

anti-Semitism, 6, 7, 17

Benjamin, Professor and Mrs Bruce, 28, 29

Casey, Richard and Maie, 18–19

architectural photography, 5, 27–33, 42, 50–51

Berlin, 5–8, 11–12, 14–16, 30, 46–47, 58–59, 60

Cazneaux, Harold, 19, 20, 21, 50

Art in Australia (journal), 28

BHAS (Broken Hill Associated Smelters), 42, 135, 136, 175

ASIO see Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Asmiss, Dr, 17–18 assembly line, 42, 162–163 Associated Pulp and Paper Mills, 40, 117, 141, 149, 166, 167

BHP, 19 BHP House, Melbourne, 30, 80–81, 86, 106 bird’s-eye views, 14 black and white photography, 31, 38, 42

cement plants, 118, 119, 133, 142, 143 Charles Ruwolt Engineering Works. see Vickers Ruwolt Engineering Works Citizens of the Twentieth Century (19091930s) project, 41 coal miners, 151–153 coal mining, 134, 171–174

Aujourd’hui: Art et Architecture (magazine), 29

Blast Furnace (Cazneaux photograph), 21

Colonial Mutual Life Assurance, 30, 31, 100

Borch, Asta von, 15, 60

Colortex Fabrics, 161

Australia

Boyd, Robin, 27, 32, 93, 110

colour photography, 14, 31, 38, 42



post-war years, 2, 27

Brauns Construction, 24



Second World War, 10, 21–24, 26

Breuhaus, Fritz, 15–16

Comalco, 42–43, 44, 45, 46, 84, 85, 137, 167



WS’s migration to, 4, 14–18

Broken Hill (NSW), 42, 108, 136, 175



Australia Post, 37



Australian Army, 10, 21, 22, 26, 46

Broken Hill Associated Smelters (BHAS), 42, 135, 136, 175

Comalco Bauxite Stockpiling at Dawn, Weipa, Cape York (1971 photograph), 43, 44, 45



Australian Cement, 142

Browne, R., 21

Comorin (ship), 16–17



Australian Communist Party, 24

Bruck Mills Guest House, Wangaratta, 93

Concentration Camps, 11

184

Contempora School for Applied Arts, Berlin, 7, 8, 11–12, 13, 14–15, 60

Film und Foto (1929 exhibition), 12

Cotton, Olive, 49–50

Foreign Office (Germany), 5, 14

Country Women’s Association, 68–69

4th Labour Company (4th Employment Company), 22, 26

‘Curtains of Fire’, Shell’s Drilling Rig, the ‘Nymphea’ (1983 photograph), 43, 45, 178–179

D Deakin Round House, Canberra (ACT), 28–29, 29 Department of Overseas Trade (Australia), 33 Dixon, Dean, 65 domestic architecture, 28–30, 29 Dorien Leigh photo agency, London, 9 Dorsch, Miss, 15 Drechsler, Mr, 17–18 drilling rigs, 43, 45, 176, 177, 178–179 Dunera internees, 26 Dunlop Tyre Manufacturing, 39 Dupain, Max, 26, 30, 49–51

E Eagle Life Insurance, 30 Eagle Star Building, Melbourne, 104, 107 ‘Elbeo’ stockings advertisement, 12, 13 Electrolytic Industries, ii–iii, 35, 35, 128, 129, 139 European émigrés, 22, 26, 28, 50–51

F

Ford Motors, 162–163

fashion models, 26–27, 63, 66 fashion photography, 12, 26–27, 51–52 Federal Hotel, Melbourne, 31, 32, 51, 52 Fédération Internationale de l’art Photographique, 51

Hillstan flats, Pt Nepean Road, Melbourne, 28, 92 Hitashi, 154

Franco, 10–11

Hitler, Adolf, 5, 6–7, 9

Frankfurt, 14, 57

Hotel Australia, Melbourne, 111

Fremantle (WA), 17

hotel photography, 31–32

Freytag, Hans, 8, 9

Hoyningen-Huene brothers, 9

G

I

Garlake, Margaret, 25

industrial photography, 19, 22, 27–28, 33, 35, 37–46, 51–52, 112

gears, mining industry, 36, 37, 37–38, 119 Gears for Mining Industry (1967 photograph), 36, 37, 37–38 Geelong (Vic.), 89, 133, 142, 157 Geelong Teachers College, Geelong, 89 Geiger’s Handbag Shop, Melbourne, 63 German Embassy, Lisbon, 8–9 Germany

architecture, 5–6, 14



Nazi Germany, 4–12, 15–17

interior spaces, 9, 29–31, 47

J Jelinek, Alex, 27, 28 Jewish people, 4, 6, 7, 17, 22, 47

K

photographs, 13, 57–60

Kaiser Friedrich Gymnasium, Charlottenburg, Berlin, 6



Second World War, 14, 16, 47

Kauffmann, John, 25



Weimar Republic, 2



WS leaves, 4, 14–18

Kelly and Lewis Engineering Works, 146, 147



WS’s visits to, 25, 46–47

Kiwi Shoe Polish, 160

Gestapo, 11, 17, 46 Gilliam, Elizabeth, x

Klaerich, Brita. see Sievers, Brita, nee Klaerich (WS’s wife)

Goebbels, Josef, 7

Kollwitz, Käthe, 5

Gollings, John, 38

Krause, Dr, 15

Griffin, Marion Mahony, 79

Krimper, Schulim, 28

Grounds, Roy, 27, 84, 85

The Fabulous Hill (1960) (book), 42 factory photography, 19, 35, 37–42

high-rise buildings, Melbourne, 30–31, 75–77, 80–81

H Heide (Heide 2), Melbourne, 29–30, 94, 95 Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital, Melbourne, 22 Herbst, Gerard, 26–27, 51–52, 66, 67

L Lang, Fritz, 37 Le Corbusier, 27 Lennons Hotel, Brisbane, 31, 68–69, 97, 99 Life (magazine), 46

The Life and Work of Wolfgang Sievers (1991 exhibition), 3, 52 light in photographs, 37, 50

see also bauxite mining; coal mining Mobil, 33, 35, 112, 113, 116, 122–126, 158–159

P

185

Parliament House, Canberra, 32

Modern Australian Photographs (1976 exhibition), 52

Perry, Barbara, vii

locomotive (photograph), 38 Luftwaffe (German air force), 16

modernist photography, 11, 14, 49–52

Photographers of Australia (film), 3

Lumiere (magazine), 38

modernity, 2–3, 25, 50, 52–53

photography

Moholy-Nagy, László, 12



equipment, 5, 16, 18, 21, 31, 38, 42–43

M

Monash University, Melbourne, 87



exhibitions, 3, 12, 51, 52

Moore, David, 30, 50



lighting, 37, 50

Macintyre, Stuart, 2

Mount Whaleback Iron Ore Deposit, Mount Newman, Western Australia (Woldendorp photograph), 43



vantage points, 14

Lisbon, 8–11

Madrid, 10 Manufacture of Matches at Bryant & May (1939 photograph), 19, 20, 21 manufacturing, 19, 27, 33, 35, 37, 38, 42 Martin Gropius Museum, Berlin, 5

N

Marweight Engineering, 40, 40, 41

National Gallery of Australia, 3, 52

mass production, 19, 41–42

National Gallery of Victoria, 30, 52, 84, 85

match production, 19, 20, 21

National Library of Australia, vii–viii, 1–2, 3

Matthaei, Ernst and Grace, 18

Nazi Germany, 4–12, 15–17, 21

Mauthausen Concentration Camp (Austria), 11

Neues Haus, Neue Welt (New House, New World) (Mendelsohn), 27

McGlashan, David, 30, 89, 94

New Colonial Mutual Life Building, Melbourne, 31, 100

McIntyre, Peter, 27 Melbourne (Vic.)

high-rise buildings, 30–31, 75–77, 80–81

New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit), 12, 41 New Photography, 11–12, 51 New Visions in Photography (1953 exhibition), 51, 52



post-war modernisation, 28, 30–31



South Eastern Purification Plant, 30, 130, 131, 132

New Zealand Insurance Company, 30, 105



WS’s arrival, 17–19

Niemoeller, Martin, 6



WS’s homes, 1, 18–19, 23, 25

‘Nymphea’ (oil rig), 43, 45, 176, 177, 178–179

Mendelsohn, Erich, 6, 27, 32

Newton (Neustädter), Helmut, 26, 51, 52

Menzies, Robert, 16–17 Menzies Hotel, Melbourne, 31, 98 Methodist Mission, Weipa, 46, 47, 70–73 Metropolis (film), 37 Metropolitan Board of Works, Melbourne, 30, 130, 131, 132 Mies van der Rohe, 27 Miller Rope, 41, 148 mining industry, 33, 42–46

O Obermaier, Professor, 10 oil refineries, 34, 35, 42, 112, 113, 116, 122–126, 140, 158–159 oil rigs, 43, 45, 176, 177, 178–179 Olympic Games, Melbourne (1956), 28 Olympic Swimming Pool, Melbourne, 30, 82

Peter Bray Art Gallery, Melbourne, 25

Pictorialism, 49, 51 Poignant, Axel, 30, 46, 50 portrait photography, 15, 19, 22, 26 Portugal, 8, 8–10, 9 postage stamp photograph, 36, 37, 37–38 Poverty in Berlin (1933), 14, 30, 59 Prestige Limited, 27 product advertising, 12, 13, 19 pulp and paper mills, 40, 117, 141, 149, 166, 167

Q Queen Mary (ship), 26

R Reed, John and Sunday, 30, 94, 95 Reich Chamber of Culture (Germany), 7 Renger-Patzsch, Albert, 12 residential photography, 28–30 Risdon (Tas.), ii–iii, 35, 35, 128, 129, 139 Roberts, Russell, 17 Romberg, Frederick, 26, 27, 28, 90, 91 rope making, 41, 148 Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), 21, 22, 46 Royal Automobile Club of Victoria, 109

186

S



Melbourne homes, 1, 18–19, 23, 25



Order of Australia, 52

saltfields, Portugal, 8



photographic studios, 1, 23

Wangaratta (Vic.), 93

Sander, August, 12, 41



photographs of, x, 7, 23

war crimes, 47–48

Savoy Plaza Hotel, Melbourne, 31, 96



political beliefs, 9–10, 45–48

Weimar Republic, 2

Schinkel, Karl Friedrich, 5, 14, 27, 47



religion, 6, 17

Schloss Glienicke, Berlin, 14, 47, 58, 59



war years, 10, 21–24, 26

Weipa, Cape York (Qld), 42–43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 70–73

scientific photography, 14, 19 Second World War

Simon Wiesenthal Jewish Documentation Centre, 47



in Australia, 10, 21–24, 26

Slevogt, Max, 5



in Germany, 14, 16, 47

Seidler, Harry, 50

Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme, 154

Sheeler, Charles, 39

South British Insurance Company, 138

Shell, 33, 43, 45, 127, 176, 177, 178–179

South Eastern Purification Plant, Melbourne, 30, 130, 131, 132

Shell House, Melbourne, 30, 102–103 shepherd, Portugal, 9 Shmith, Athol, 26, 50 Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne, 30, 83 Sievers, Anders (WS’s son), 23 Sievers, Brita, nee Klaerich (WS’s wife), 15, 18–19, 22–25

photographs of, 23, 25

W

Westgate Bridge, Melbourne, 144, 145 White, Margaret Bourke, 39 The William J. Young Laboratory, University of Melbourne, 88 Woldendorp, Richard, 43 Wolfgang Sievers Photographic Archive, vii–viii, 1–2 wool bobbins, 165

Spain, 10

workers, vii, 19, 28, 35, 39–42

Spanish Civil War, 10–11

workplaces, 30–31, 42, 51

Stanhill flats, Queens Road, Melbourne, 28, 90, 91

‘worm’s eye’ views, 14

State Government Offices, Melbourne, 31

Y

Steichen, Edward, 12 Strizic, Mark, 26

Yarra Falls Limited, 164, 165

Sydney (NSW), 17

Yuncken Freeman, 27, 80, 104, 106, 107

pottery, 25 Sievers, Hans (WS’s brother), 5, 16 Sievers, Herma, nee Schiffer (WS’s mother), 5, 6, 17

T

Sievers, Johannes (WS’s father), 5–8, 10, 11, 16–17, 25

Talbot (Tichauer), Henry, 26 technical photography, 14

Berlin exhibition (1992), 46–47 employment, 5, 7, 14 Sievers, Karin (WS’s daughter), 23, 23

U

Sievers, Wolfgang

UBCO (United Ball Bearing Co.), 150



anti-war beliefs, 10, 46

University of Melbourne, 88



ASIO file, 4, 18, 21, 24, 46



early life, 4–8



education, 6, 7–8, 11–12



emigration to Australia, 4, 14–18



family, 5, 23, 24



German heritage, 2, 5, 24–26, 46–48, 51



legacy, 49–52



marriage, 18, 19

V Vickers Ruwolt Engineering Works, 19, 33, 36, 37, 114–115, 118–121, 143, 154–156 Victorian Portland Cement, 133 Vietnam Moratorium campaign, 46 von Borch, Asta, 15, 60

Z zinc plants, 35, 35, 129, 139, 175

For Sievers, industry was beautiful, but goodness resided in the worker. Wolfgang Sievers represents an absolutely singular case in the whole history of photography. Jorge Calado in Life Line (2000)

John Gould (trade)

Photography/Art ISBN 978-0-642-27699-5

www.nla.gov.au