Rennie Ellis

Mr Muscleman, Albert Park Beach c.1986. Chromogenic print 26.7 x 40.7 cm. Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive.

Don and Patrizia, St Kilda Beach 1985. Chromogenic print 40.5 x 50.8 cm. Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive.

Bon Scott and Angus Young, Atlanta, Georgia 1978. Selenium-toned gelatin silver print26.7 x 40.7 cm. Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive.

Property of Hells Angels, Kings Cross 1970″“71. Selenium-toned gelatin silver print 50.8 x 40.5 cm. Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive.

Robert McGhie, Grand Final, MCG 1974. Selenium-toned gelatin silver print 50.8 x 40.5 cm. Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive.

My son Josh learns to swim, 1972. Selenium-toned gelatin silver print 26.7 x 40.7 cm. Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive.

The Rennie Ellis Show

3 April – 8 June 2014
Monash Gallery of Art
860 Ferntree Gully Road
Wheelers Hill, Victoria, Australia
Website

From the gallery

The photographer Rennie Ellis (1940″“2003) is a key figure in Australian visual culture. Ellis is best remembered for his effervescent observations of Australian life during the 1970s”“90s, including his now iconic book  Life is a beach. Although invariably inflected with his own personality and wit, the thousands of social documentary photographs taken by Ellis during this period now form an important historical record.

The Rennie Ellis Show  highlights some of the defining images of Australian life from the 1970s and ’80s. This is the period of Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, Paul Keating and Bob Hawke; AC/DC and punk rock; cheap petrol and coconut oil; Hare Krishnas and Hookers and Deviant balls.

This exhibition of more than 100 photographs provides a personal account of what Ellis termed ‘a great period of change’. Photographs explore the cultures and subcultures of the period, and provide a strong sense of a place that now seems worlds away, a world free of risk, of affordable inner city housing, of social protest, of disco and pub rock, of youth and exuberance.

Fitzroy extrovert 1974. Selenium-toned gelatin silver print 40.5 x 50.8 cm. Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive.

Backstage Adjustments 1998. Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive.

Richmond fans, Grand Final, MCG 1974. Chromogenic print 40.5 x 50.8 cm. Courtesy of the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive.