Born: 25th December 1916 Chatswood, Sydney, New South Wales
Died: 2nd February 1990 Pittwater, Sydney, New South Wales
Married: Ann Melanie Warmington, a fashion advertiser, on 22nd July 1948 at St Michael’s Church of England - Divorced in 1967
Art Gallery of New South Wales - web site
Laurence Le Guay started his photographic career with Dayne Studios in 1935 at the age of 18. In 1938 he was invited to join the Contemporary Camera Groupe which included Max Dupain and Olive Cotton, as well as several older photographers including Harold Cazneaux and Cecil Bostock. The Groupe was committed to practising and promoting a modern Australian approach to photography. Le Guay, like Dupain and other members, was interested in European modernism and wanted to find a way to use this style to create uniquely Australian images.
'THE PROGENITORS' is one of a series of montage works that Le Guay produced on the theme of modernism and the human condition. In the image, the nude man and woman are positioned as massive figures within an industrial landscape. The woman looks skyward with one hand pressed to her temple, while the man is seated at her feet and gazes up at her and the factory towers. The pose of the woman echoes the towers of the factory behind her, while the light and cloud suggest the enlightenment of the industrial world. The implication is that the couple are a modern Adam and Eve, with their ability to produce a new Australian race intrinsically linked to the productive capabilities of the modern industrial machines behind them. As Isobel Crombie has written:
The title of Le Guay’s work potently suggests the complex mix of issues regarding race, heredity and modernity that circulated during the 1930s … A progenitor can mean a spiritual, political or intellectual predecessor and, in this context, the couple offer the viewer the reassuring promise of future prosperity.
left: THE PROGENITORS c.1938
middle: Untitled (montage for war poster) c.1939
right: Sylphides circa 1940s
left: Indian woman and child circa 1943
middle: Dance movement circa 1946
right: The discus thrower circa 1947
left: Sicilian peasants circa 1942
middle: Portugal circa 1948
right: William Dobell, Elizabeth Bay, Sydney circa 1950
left: Natives, Kanana ceremony, New Guinea circa 1945
middle: Pope Pius, Rome World War II post 1944
right: Aboriginal group with dog