As well as being a highly respected surgeon, Dr. Julian Smith (1873–1947) was one of Australia’s most famous Pictorialist photographers. He took up photography as a hobby in his 50s and became an advocate for a Pictorialist approach to the medium, exhibiting his work both in Australia and internationally.

Pictorial photography flourished in the early twentieth century, and was one of the first truly international art movements. Proponents of Pictorialism explored photography’s relationship to fine art, the imagination and self-expression. In Australia, atmospheric landscape scenes that approximated Impressionist painting constituted the dominant Pictorialist style, but portraiture was also an important genre. Smith brought a Pictorialist sentiment to portraiture by producing fanciful character studies of sitters dressed up as whimsical archetypes and literary figures.

Image: Julian SMITH
Entr'acte  c1935-47
from the portfolio Fifty masterpieces of photography by Dr. Julian Smith  1949
facsimilie plate print
35.1 x 27.0 cm
Monash Gallery of Art, City of Monash Collection
acquired 2009
MGA 2009.038