UNKNOWN / Australia / (Newrum Creek) c.1914 / Gelatin silver photograph on paper / Purchased 1994. John Darnell Bequest / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art

Unknown
(Newrum Creek) c.1914

Not Currently on Display

These photographs by an unknown (probably Government) photographer, were taken of the Queensland countryside in the years just before World War I.  Each photograph describes an abundance that existed in an era before the pollution of land and rivers, before salination and degradation; a land in which the sugar refinery symbolised only wealth and prosperity.

Originally for promotional albums published by the Department of Railways in 1914, the photographs give a view of Queensland designed specifically to entice the visitor – whether he/she be a tourist or investor – and are integral to our understanding of the complex role images have played, both now and in past decades, in shaping our views of the land and national identity.