A blizzard

Frank Hurley
Australia
1885 – 1962

A blizzard
from the Australasian Antarctic Expedition 1911–14
1912
blue-toned carbon print
Place made
Cape Denison, Antarctica
Medium
blue-toned carbon print
Dimensions
35.1 x 41.7 cm (image)
Credit line
Gift of Joan Beer, William J.S Boyle C.M, Peter and Sandra Dobson, Gwinnett Family, Roger Lang, Shane Le Plastrier, The Hon Justice Mark Livesey, David McKee AO and Pam McKee, Peter and Pamela McKee, Dick Whitington QC and Peter Wilson through the Art Gallery of South Australia Foundation Collectors Club 2019
Accession number
20197Ph80
Signature and date
Not signed. Not dated.
Media category
Photograph
Collection area
Australian photographs

  • Antarctica: five responses from the collection, 2020-2021


    Frank Hurley accompanied Douglas Mawson on Australia’s first expedition to Antarctica in 1911–14. His documentation in photography and film was critical to the mission, providing evidence for scientific discoveries, as well as enabling access for an eager public to the dramatic landscape and conditions prevailing there. Hurley’s photograph The blizzard, 1912, became emblematic of the extreme conditions experienced by the men. It shows two figures ‘hurricane walking’ or ‘wind walking’, whereby in order to move forward they would lean and ‘lie on the wind’. In stark contrast, Hurley’s A glacial fairyland, 1912, was taken at a moment of calm. These works, and his film Home of the blizzard (on loan from the National Sound and Film Archive), had a remarkable impact on the public on Mawson’s return – magnified by the fact that the environment could be experienced by so few.

     

    Maria Zagala, Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs

  • Exhibition of Unique Photographic Pictures taken during the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, also other photographic studies by Frank Hurley

    The Fine Art Society, London, 1915 – 1915

  • , Mawson / Delprat: A selling exhibition of rare Antarctic photographs, expeditionary artefacts, antique furniture, curios and persona effects from the collections of Sir Douglas Mawson and G. D. Delprat

    Michael Treloar Antiquarian Booksellers, 16 September 2019 – 27 September 2019

  • Antarctica: Five responses

    Art Gallery of South Australia, 5 December 2020 – 26 April 2021
  • [Book] Hurley, Frank. Exhibition of Unique Photographic Pictures taken during the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, also other photographic studies by Frank Hurley.
  • [Book] Mawson / Delprat: A selling exhibition of rare Antarctic photographs, expeditionary artefacts, antique furniture, curios and persona effects from the collections of Sir Douglas Mawson and G. D. Delprat.
  • [Journal] AGSA Magazine.