Colour In Darkness: Images from the First World War
- Past Exhibition
In the early 1920s, an exhibition of war photographs toured Australia, attracting crowds and enthusiastic reviews. Most of the photographs were taken by Australian personnel who served at Gallipoli, in the Middle East and on the Western Front.
Exhibition Information
1 Shakespeare Place
Sydney NSW 2000
Australia
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Reviving "The Pictorial Panorama of the Great War"
In the early 1920s, an exhibition of war photographs toured Australia, attracting crowds and enthusiastic reviews. Most of the photographs were taken by Australian personnel who served at Gallipoli, in the Middle East and on the Western Front. The photographs were enlarged and hand-coloured by ‘digger artists’ at Colarts Studios from smaller snapshots. In most cases, we don’t know the names of the photographers, nor the returned servicemen who coloured the images, but we do know that the exhibition was a tremendous success.
Some 90 years after the original exhibition toured the country, these prints — which came to the Library in the 1960s — are displayed together in Colour in Darkness.