Sisters of Charity 1956 (printed 1989)

Summary

One of Australia’s most celebrated documentary photographers, David Moore (1927–2003) captured this compelling aerial scene from the mezzanine level at Washington National Airport in 1956, five years after leaving Australia to build a career as a photojournalist. The semi-abstract composition shows a group of nuns in traditional wimples. Appearing, at first glance, to be an arrangement of origami boats or birds, the photograph’s true subject emerges only as one looks deeper into the work and the nuns’ hands and the lines of the floor tiles come into focus. The stillness of this beautifully composed image is gently addled by a barely perceptible nervousness of the nuns, who face every which way as if unsettled by being outside the comfort of the cloister. This gelatin silver print came into the Art and Heritage Collection in 1990.