At St Paul’s Cathedral 1954

Summary

Mark Strizic (1928–2012) arrived in Australia in 1951, part of the wave of postwar migrants arriving from Eastern Europe. This renowned Australian photographer studied not his chosen art form but rather physics and geology in Zagreb, in the former Yugoslavia. Strizic picked up the camera after arriving in Melbourne, purchasing this from a pharmacy as a means to explore his new home environment. He became a commercial photographer in 1957, building his reputation primarily as an architectural and industrial photographer in an era of intense urban development. He soon became associated with a coterie of Melbourne modernists, including Robin Boyd, Schulim Krimper and fellow photographers Athol Shmith and Wolfgang Sievers. Often framed by his progressive social and political concerns, his work is overwhelmingly sympathetic with modernist ideals: humanist, rational, spare. The Art and Heritage Collection holds around 40 photographic works by Strizic, almost all of which document the streets, river and life of mid-century Melbourne in expressive monochrome. Many of these works came into the collection through direct engagement with the artist in 2005. Strizic captured a certain ennui in this photograph, as folk rest with their newspapers on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral following the fanfare of the royal procession along Swanston Street. The 1954 was a particularly popular royal visit, with Queen Elizabeth II being the first (and only) reigning British monarch to step foot on Australian soil.