Philip Quirk

Philip Quirk was born in Melbourne, Australia on 11 November 1948 to Valentine Quirk, a communications engineer, and mother Phyl.[1] He grew up with a younger sister and older brother in East St Kilda & Caulfield and attended St Kilda Christian Brothers College where he completed Matriculation before briefly studying Business at RMIT.

From the age of 14 he had been a keen surfer around Torquay, but in a 1969 car accident he suffered a severely broken arm and over the year that it took to recover, he started to photograph his surfer friends with a 35mm Pentax Spotmatic and telephoto 500mm F5.5 Takumar lens. Through a friend Quirk met the Melbourne fashion photographer and stylist couple Bruno & Hazel Benini who gave him access to their darkroom in which to process his surfing shots. His first published photograph was in the Melbourne Herald for an article on Bells Beach by Victorian surf champion Rod Brooks.

In 1970 Bruno Benini encouraged him to enter Ilford Australia's national competition the 'Age of Aquarius' for a return trip to London, in which he was short listed in the final ten, though then disqualified as an amateur. He went on to assist Benini, who arranged a meeting for him with the contest winner Paul Cox,[2] who was lecturer in photography at Prahran College of Advanced Education. With his parents' blessing Quirk enrolled to study there 1971-3 under Gordon De L’Isle, Athol Shmith and Cox,[3] while continuing as Benini's assistant until 1974.

On graduation, Quirk worked as a photographer for the Southern Cross Newspaper Group and was a lecturer at Gordon Institute of Technology (now Deakin University) and at Photography Studies College before moving to Sydney in 1976 to start a freelance photojournalism practice. There, he also taught part-time at Sydney College of the Arts and later was a foundation lecturer at the Australian Centre for Photography. With Grenville Turner and Mark Lang, Quirk worked from a Surry Hills studio run by Anthony Browell & Graham McCarter, before founding the Wildlight Agency. In 1982 he traveled to Wales to research and photograph for a book on the eisteddfod there and in Australia.[4]

Since 1972, Quirk has continually exhibited his early street photography,[13][14] his mature-period landscapes and social documentaries of country people, and portraits of Australian personalities including Sidney Nolan and Brett Whiteley, and is represented by Josef Lebovic Gallery in Kensington,[15] and previously by Sydney's Macquarie Galleries before their cessation.

Quirk's work has been secured for most major national public collections and he was thus represented in On the Edge: Australian Photographers of the Seventies, at San Diego Museum of Art, California in 1995, the photographs drawn from the Philip Morris collection at the National Gallery of Australia. Quirk's imagery of the period often contains wry visual commentary on Australian lifestyles,[16] especially its beach culture.[17]

In order to represent the expansive and often flat Australian landscape,[18] Quirk advanced the use of the panorama. Before 1979 he used a Hasselblad to create panoramas (mostly of landscape subjects) for David Beal's Audience Motivation, a pioneering audio-visual company based in Paddington.[19][20][21] The precisely cut medium-format colour transparencies were overlapped so that no line was visible on screen. However, by the mid 1990s video projection made slide projection redundant.[19] Beal imported the first 6x17 cm camera, the Linhof Technorama 617 into the country[19] and Quirk adopted it in 1981, using a Schneider Super Angulon 90mm f5.6 wide-angle lens. Other Wildlight photographers Grenville Turner and Mark Lang also found the camera useful for imagery of outback Australia in which the Agency specialised, before the 6x17 cm format became commonplace, and panoramas clichés of domestic décor.[22]

Senior Australian photographer Max Dupain highlights Quirk's work in his review of a landmark survey at the Albury Regional Gallery;

Phillip Quirk observes life and it offshoots with a keen eye for elements that seem to fall into exact places which he endows with a twist of wry humour (City to Surf). Look at the interaction of both horses' legs in The Drought. The symmetry is so well-timed and composed"[23]

Critic Anne Latrielle in The Age[24] praised his representations of Australian flora in a show at The Lighthouse Gallery, Prahran;

"Philip Quirk shows the city-dweller stunning aspects of the Australian landscape, from the pastoral calm of river redgums on the Murray River at Barmah to the brooding stillness of alpine forms under snow. Despite two decades of degradation the remaining scenic resources of our country are awe-inspiring. No one interested in our native flora should miss this show."

In her summation of the year 1989 in photography, Beatrice Faust singled out Quirk's wilderness imagery in that exhibition as "exquisitely coloured and [using] natural light in a uniquely creative way."[25] and earlier elaborated;

"Light is the key to Quirk’s fascination. The true subject of his work is not just the furnishings of the landscape but the space and light that gives it life. He uses delicate bounce light from snow to bring out the extraordinarily subtle colours in rocks that most of us would see as black, or catches the horizontal light of sunrise and sunset to bring out the colour latent in grass and foliage."[26]

At the end of 2003, after eighteen years, Quirk stood down as managing director of Wildlight Photo Agency and is presently living in Sydney and archiving its output. Since his retirement from the Agency, Quirk has undertaken a series of speaking engagements including the 2003 David Moore Lecture and the 2004 Walkley Forum, as well as gallery floor talks and presentations to Media Arts students.

In 2005 Quirk was commissioned by the NSW Farmers Association to make a series of portraits of farming families and their working life in 13 regions of New South Wales.[27] He followed that with a project during the continuing drought in 2006 in Hay, to produce a broader series which documented the landscape, arable farming, and the natural environment with portraits to illustrate the subjects’ relationships with the land, accompanied with text recording their concerns over drought and environmental degradation caused by reduced water flows in the two major river systems in the district.[28]

Amidst his professional work, Quirk continued his teaching activities and was Chairman for Australia and NZ of the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass 1998 - 2013. The event was held in the Netherlands annually and 12 photographers under 31 years of age from around the world are selected to attend. The objective of this competitive award is to advance their professional development. Australian recipients of this award in 2010 included Trent Parke, Jesse Marlow and Adam Ferguson.

Quirk has won industry awards and government grants for his projects which have included a commission from the organisation 'Beyond Empathy' which uses arts intervention to address the deficits experienced by disadvantaged individuals and communities. For them, over 2006/7 Quirk taught and work-shopped photographic portraiture in two communities in New South Wales at Moree and Armidale to young mothers, many of them teenagers, and to male teenagers who were often in trouble with the law. He also made portraits of individuals in the groups.

In advancing his own education, during 2009–2011 Quirk undertook a master's degree by Research, COFA, University of New South Wales.

Quirk has been active in representing his industry, and was spokesperson for the Society of Advertising, Commercial and Magazine Photographers (ACMP) on copyright issues (1998 - 2004); Chairman of Judges, ACMP Photographer Collection Melbourne in 2000; and judge for the Nikon Walkley Foundation Photographic Awards in 2008.

• Gordon Institute of Technology (now Deakin University)
• Sydney College of the Arts – part-time lecturer
• Australian Centre for Photography – foundation lecturer
• University of Tasmania Art School - guest lecturer
• Charles Sturt University NSW - guest lecturer
• Short course lecturer COFA University of NSW
• Photography Studies College

• Quirk, Philip; Feddersen, Melanie. (Designer); Schmelzer, Barbara. (Binder); Digitalpress (Firm) (Printer); Josef Lebovic Gallery (Distributor) (2011), Oxford Street profile, Philip Quirk
• Wildlight Photo Agency (1999), Australian faces & places, Pluto Press, ISBN 978-1-86403-044-0
• Wildlight Photo Agency (1998), Wildlight Sydney, Hardie Grant Books, ISBN 978-1-86498-007-3
• Wildlight Photo Agency (1998), Across the top, Hardie Grant Books, ISBN 978-1-86498-005-9
• Quirk, Philip (1997), Farm : life on the land, William Heinemann Australia, ISBN 978-0-85561-736-3
• Wildlight Photo Agency (1997), Australian faces & places, Pluto Press, ISBN 978-1-86403-038-9
• Quirk, Philip; Yunupingu, Mandawuy; Quirk, Philip (1997), Wild light : images of Australia, Hamlyn, ISBN 978-0-947334-78-9
• Wildlight Photo Agency (1996), Australian faces & places, Pluto Press, ISBN 978-1-86403-031-0
• The Eisteddfods of Australia & Wales, hand-made (edition of 1) 1982

• Mirams, Jacinta; Boag, Jules; Mirams, Jacinta; Albury City Art Gallery (2009), The history of the National Photography Prize, City of Albury, pp. 22, 23, ISBN 978-0-9578258-2-6
• Park, Andy; Smolan, Rick (1981), A day in the life of Australia, A Day in the life of Australia Pty Ltd, ISBN 978-0-9594244-0-9
• McGregor, Malcolm (1983), A day in the life of New Zealand : Friday March 18th 1983, J.M. McGregor, ISBN 978-0-85921-210-6
• Smolan, Rick; Cohen, David, 1955- (1988), A Day in the life of California, San Francisco Collins Publishers, ISBN 978-0-00-215162-7{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Suich, Max, 1938-; Suich, Jennie (1983), The Great Australian annual, Kevin Weldon & Associates, ISBN 978-0-949708-04-5{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Mayne, Robert (1985), The great Australian wine book, Reed Books, ISBN 978-0-7301-0101-7
• Falkiner, Suzanne (1992), Wilderness, Simon & Schuster, ISBN 978-0-7318-0144-2
• Falkiner, Suzanne; McKay, Lesley (1992), Settlement, Simon & Schuster, ISBN 978-0-7318-0145-9
• Lawrence, Anthony, 1912- (1984), A Salute to Singapore, Times of Singapore, ISBN 978-9971-83-919-2{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• The racing game : a tribute to the Australian horse racing industry, Joyce Childress, 1985, ISBN 978-0-9591313-1-4
• Morris, Brian; Wildlight Photo Agency (1988), Australia take a bow : the life, landscape and people, John Ferguson in association with Angus & Robertson, ISBN 978-0-949118-31-8[12]
• O'Shaughnessy, Pieta; Lawton, Jane; McDougall, Dee; Smith, Arnold Pudding; Smith, Arnold Pudding. Stop ringing the submission bells (2000), A traveller's guide to Aboriginal Australia, Desert Images, ISBN 978-0-646-38205-0
• Mary Ann Harrell; National Geographic Society (U.S.). Special Publications Division (1989), Surprising lands down under, Washington, D.C National Geographic Society, ISBN 978-0-87044-719-8
• Faces of Australia, Australia Post - Hardie Grant Melbourne
• Groppe, Brian (1999), Sydney : world-class jewel, Towery Pub, ISBN 978-1-881096-68-9
• Smolan, Rick; Erwitt, Jennifer (1998), One digital day : how the microchip is changing our world (1st ed.), Times Books/Random House in association with Against All Odds Productions, ISBN 978-0-8129-3031-3
• Halliday, James; Coronel, Carlos (1998), Wine atlas of Australia & New Zealand (Revised ed.), HarperCollins, ISBN 978-0-7322-6448-2[29]
• Reader's Digest (Australia) (1999), Reader's Digest book of the road, Reader's Digest (Australia), ISBN 978-0-86449-378-1
• McCulloch, Susan (1999), Contemporary aboriginal art : a guide to the rebirth of an ancient culture, Allen & Unwin, ISBN 978-1-86448-631-5
• Woldendorp, Richard; McDonald, Roger, 1941-; Burdon, Amanda (2003), Wool : the Australian story, Fremantle Arts Centre Press in association with Richard Woldendorp, ISBN 978-1-86368-396-8{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Art Gallery of New South Wales; Pearce, Barry; George, Alec; Pellow, Ashlie (2007), Brett Whiteley Studio, Art Gallery of New South Wales, ISBN 978-1-74174-012-7
• Atkinson, Geoffrey; Quirk, Philip, 1948- (1988), The Australian adventure : the explorer's guide to the island continent, Salem House, ISBN 978-0-88162-361-1{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Phelan, Nancy; Ramsden, Philip; Lang, Mark; Quirk, Philip (1993), Agoston-O'Connor, Susie (ed.), Mosman impressions (Collector's ed.), Mosman: Mosman Municipal Council, ISBN 978-0-646-12772-9

• 2009 Australian Postgraduate Scholarship COFA University of NSW
• 1997–2001 Diamond Press & Australian Paper for Aust’n F & P Diary
• 1988 AWB Ltd for The People & the Paddocks
• 1984 CSR Ltd for The CSR Project Art Gallery of NSW
• 1980 Visual Arts Board Australia Council for The Eisteddfods

• Artist Website
• Oxford Street Profile
• Philip Quirk at Joseph Lebovic Gallery