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After Adrian Boddington’s death at 58 in 1970, Jennie Boddington retired from active film production. She then took up the post of first full-time curator of photography<ref>Ely, Deborah ''History of Photography'', 01 June 1999, Vol.23(2), p.118-122</ref> for the [[National Gallery of Victoria]] in 1972.<ref>Cox, Leonard B. The National Gallery of Victoria, 1861-1968: The Search for a Collection. Melbourne: The National Gallery of Victoria; Brown Prior Anderson Pty Ltd, 1971</ref><ref>Australian Photographer Carol Jerrems photographed Boddington at the NGV in 1974. See: [http://cs.nga.gov.au/Detail.cfm?IRN=8245 Carol JERREMS Ivanhoe, Melbourne, Australia 1949 – 1980 "Curator of Photography, Jennie Boddington and photographer Melanie Le Guay at the National Gallery of Victoria) 1974]</ref> She was selected from fifty-three applicants,<ref>Minutes of the NGV Photographic Subcommittee. Melbourne, 16/05/1972 quoted in Tate, Suzanne. Photographic Collections in Victoria: Waverley City Gallery, Horsham Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Victoria: An Analysis of Past History and Future Directions. The University of Melbourne: Postgraduate Diploma Thesis, 1998, Chapter 2: The Photography Department of the National Gallery of Victoria. pp. 17-18.</ref> becoming the first such curator in Australia and perhaps only the third in the world.
After Adrian Boddington’s death at 58 in 1970, Jennie Boddington retired from active film production. She then took up the post of first full-time curator of photography<ref>Ely, Deborah ''History of Photography'', 01 June 1999, Vol.23(2), p.118-122</ref> for the [[National Gallery of Victoria]] in 1972.<ref>Cox, Leonard B. The National Gallery of Victoria, 1861-1968: The Search for a Collection. Melbourne: The National Gallery of Victoria; Brown Prior Anderson Pty Ltd, 1971</ref><ref>Australian Photographer Carol Jerrems photographed Boddington at the NGV in 1974. See: [http://cs.nga.gov.au/Detail.cfm?IRN=8245 Carol JERREMS Ivanhoe, Melbourne, Australia 1949 – 1980 "Curator of Photography, Jennie Boddington and photographer Melanie Le Guay at the National Gallery of Victoria) 1974]</ref> She was selected from fifty-three applicants,<ref>Minutes of the NGV Photographic Subcommittee. Melbourne, 16/05/1972 quoted in Tate, Suzanne. Photographic Collections in Victoria: Waverley City Gallery, Horsham Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Victoria: An Analysis of Past History and Future Directions. The University of Melbourne: Postgraduate Diploma Thesis, 1998, Chapter 2: The Photography Department of the National Gallery of Victoria. pp. 17-18.</ref> becoming the first such curator in Australia and perhaps only the third in the world.


Boddington devoted several exhibitions to contemporary Australian photographers included the well known and the recently discovered, giving equal billing to male and female artists; among these were [[Micky Allan]]<ref>Boddington, Jennie & National Gallery of Victoria (1980). Micky Allan : Botany Bay today : Jillian Gibb : One year's work. The Gallery, Melbourne</ref>, [[Jon Rhodes]],<ref>Boddington, Jennie (1978). Laurie Wilson's landscapes and Jon Rhodes' Australia : Photography Gallery, June 7. National Gallery of Victoria, [s.l]</ref> Jillian Gibb, [[Ruth Maddison]], and David Stephenson. She debuted the [[Geelong]] landscape photographer Laurie Wilson,<ref>National Gallery of Victoria & Boddington, Jennie, 1922- & Wilson, Laurie, 1920-1980 (1982). Laurie Wilson. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne</ref> and promoted the work of the young [[Bill Henson]] recognising his talent with his first major exhibition while he was still a student. Important early Australian photography was given space, including that of [[Fred Kruger]] whose prints and glass plates were brought to the curator by his descendants, and also the Antarctic photographers [[Frank Hurley]] and [[Herbert Ponting]].<ref>Hurley, Frank, 1885-1962 & Ponting, Herbert, 1870-1935 & Boddington, Jennie, 1922- (1979). Antarctic photographs, 1910-1916. London [etc.] Macmillan</ref> [[Russell Drysdale]]'s use of colour photography as an aide-mémoire was posited in an exhibition in 1987 and catalogue essay which reveals in previously unknown photographic imagery this method of working and his stylisation in interpretation of subject matter and specific locations.<ref>[[Jennie Boddington|Boddington, Jennie]] & Drysdale, Russell Sir, 1912-1981 & National Gallery of Victoria (1987). Drysdale, photographer. National Gallery of Victoria , 1987, Melbourne</ref>
Boddington devoted several exhibitions to contemporary Australian photographers included the well known and the recently discovered, giving equal billing to male and female artists; among these were [[Micky Allan]]<ref>Boddington, Jennie & National Gallery of Victoria (1980). Micky Allan : Botany Bay today : Jillian Gibb : One year's work. The Gallery, Melbourne</ref>, [[Jon Rhodes]],<ref>Boddington, Jennie (1978). Laurie Wilson's landscapes and Jon Rhodes' Australia : Photography Gallery, June 7. National Gallery of Victoria, [s.l]</ref> Jillian Gibb, [[Ruth Maddison]], and David Stephenson. She debuted the [[Geelong]] landscape photographer Laurie Wilson,<ref>National Gallery of Victoria & Boddington, Jennie, 1922- & Wilson, Laurie, 1920-1980 (1982). Laurie Wilson. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne</ref> and promoted the work of the young [[Bill Henson]] recognising his talent with his first major exhibition while he was still a student. Important early Australian photography was given space, including that of [[Fred Kruger]] whose prints and glass plates were brought to the curator by his descendants, and also the Antarctic photographers [[Frank Hurley]] and [[Herbert Ponting]].<ref>Hurley, Frank, 1885-1962 & Ponting, Herbert, 1870-1935 & Boddington, Jennie, 1922- (1979). Antarctic photographs, 1910-1916. London [etc.] Macmillan</ref> Though her training was not academic, Boddington's experience as a documentary film researcher and scriptwriter enabled some original insights in publications. [[Russell Drysdale]]'s use of colour photography as an aide-mémoire was posited in an exhibition in 1987 and catalogue essay which reveals in previously unknown photographic imagery this method of working and his stylisation in interpretation of subject matter and specific locations.<ref>[[Jennie Boddington|Boddington, Jennie]] & Drysdale, Russell Sir, 1912-1981 & National Gallery of Victoria (1987). Drysdale, photographer. National Gallery of Victoria , 1987, Melbourne</ref>


In her role Boddington toured Europe, London and America in 1975, meeting photographers [[Andre Kertesz]] and [[Bill Brandt]] as well as [[John Szarkowski]], director of the [[MoMA|Museum of Modern Art]], an experience that influenced her ideas about curatorship, and leading her to decide that the acquisition of important overseas material should become a priority.<ref>Crombie, Isobel. “Creating a Collection: International Photography at the National Gallery of Victoria,” in Re_View: 170 years of Photography. Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 2009, p. 9.</ref><ref>"Within the restrictions of what Mrs Boddington described as a meagre budget and with the assistance of grants from photographic companies she hopes to present exhibitions from the collcction every two months, including exhibitions from overseas on loan." Jennie Boddington quoted by Edna Boling in A Curator of Photographs', in ''The Canberra Times'' Thursday 28 November 1974, p.18</ref> To this end, South African [[apartheid]] photographer [[David Goldblatt]] and the equally controversial Czech [[Jan Saudek]] were given major shows, and their works purchased, during Boddington's tenure.
In her role Boddington toured Europe, London and America in 1975, meeting photographers [[Andre Kertesz]] and [[Bill Brandt]] as well as [[John Szarkowski]], director of the [[MoMA|Museum of Modern Art]], an experience that influenced her ideas about curatorship, and leading her to decide that the acquisition of important overseas material should become a priority.<ref>Crombie, Isobel. “Creating a Collection: International Photography at the National Gallery of Victoria,” in Re_View: 170 years of Photography. Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 2009, p. 9.</ref><ref>"Within the restrictions of what Mrs Boddington described as a meagre budget and with the assistance of grants from photographic companies she hopes to present exhibitions from the collcction every two months, including exhibitions from overseas on loan." Jennie Boddington quoted by Edna Boling in A Curator of Photographs', in ''The Canberra Times'' Thursday 28 November 1974, p.18</ref> To this end, South African [[apartheid]] photographer [[David Goldblatt]] and the equally controversial Czech [[Jan Saudek]] were given major shows, and their works purchased, during Boddington's tenure.

Revision as of 04:24, 8 June 2015

Jennie Boddington
Jennie Boddington in 1952 photographed by Erwin Rado (1914-1988)
Jennie Boddington in 1952 photographed by Erwin Rado (1914-1988).
Born
Jennifer Blackwood

1922
Melbourne, Australia
Occupation(s)Filmmaker, curator and researcher
Years active1940s–1990s

Jennie Boddington (born 1922) is an Australian filmmaker, first curator of photography at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, and researcher.

Early life

Jennie Boddington (née Blackwood) was born in Melbourne in 1923. She married in the early 1940s, bearing a son in 1944. Beginning her career amongst Australia’s New Wave of filmmakers in Sydney,[1] she worked as wardrobe assistant with costume designer Dahl Collings on Harry Watt's Ealing feature film The Overlanders (1946), then on eight hundred costumes for Watt's unfinished follow-up, Eureka Stockade (1948).[2]

Training

Boddington entered the Commonwealth Film Unit[3] in 1948 as cutting room assistant and was there for two and a half years[4] making a lifelong friend in Joan Long (scriptwriter and film producer later known for writing Caddie (1976) and producing Puberty Blues (1981)). In 1947/8 the Commonwealth Film Unit, part of the Australian National Film Board, had moved from 66 King Street in Sydney’s CBD to 5 Condor Street in Burwood, a suburb of Sydney, into an 1879 Department of Education building, where facilities consisted of cutting rooms, a theatre, a room housing recording equipment, a camera room and office space and provided training that the private companies didn’t provide.[5] Boddington trained there with important Australian and Canadian documentary filmmakers including Australian National Film Board Producer-in-Chief, Stanley Hawes,[6] Colin Dean and Ron Maslyn Williams, and her first editing and directorial experience came in working with John Heyer on The Valley Is Ours (1948).≥

Zanthus Films

Divorced in 1950, she moved back to Melbourne and for six years scripted, edited and directed training films for the Victorian General Post Office film unit.

In 1956, she was employed by ABC TV, where she edited reportage of the Melbourne Olympic Games, and met, then in 1958 married, cinematographer (Newcombe) Adrian Boddington (b. U.K., 3 June 1911) and with whom she had three more sons, Jamie (b.1959), Alistair (b.1961) and Nicholas (b.1963).

Establishing together the Zanthus Films partnership, for which she reverted to her family name Blackwood, they operated from their home in Hawthorn,[7] producing documentaries including the BP-commissioned Three in a Million (1959),[8] Port of Melbourne (1961), and You Are Not Alone (1961) on the then tabu subject of breast cancer and masectomy. These titles were amongst early Australian Film Institute Award winners, as was the film Anzac (1959), scripted by Cyril Pearl, which pioneered the use of historical stills with rostrum camera effects.

Curator of photography

After Adrian Boddington’s death at 58 in 1970, Jennie Boddington retired from active film production. She then took up the post of first full-time curator of photography[9] for the National Gallery of Victoria in 1972.[10][11] She was selected from fifty-three applicants,[12] becoming the first such curator in Australia and perhaps only the third in the world.

Boddington devoted several exhibitions to contemporary Australian photographers included the well known and the recently discovered, giving equal billing to male and female artists; among these were Micky Allan[13], Jon Rhodes,[14] Jillian Gibb, Ruth Maddison, and David Stephenson. She debuted the Geelong landscape photographer Laurie Wilson,[15] and promoted the work of the young Bill Henson recognising his talent with his first major exhibition while he was still a student. Important early Australian photography was given space, including that of Fred Kruger whose prints and glass plates were brought to the curator by his descendants, and also the Antarctic photographers Frank Hurley and Herbert Ponting.[16] Though her training was not academic, Boddington's experience as a documentary film researcher and scriptwriter enabled some original insights in publications. Russell Drysdale's use of colour photography as an aide-mémoire was posited in an exhibition in 1987 and catalogue essay which reveals in previously unknown photographic imagery this method of working and his stylisation in interpretation of subject matter and specific locations.[17]

In her role Boddington toured Europe, London and America in 1975, meeting photographers Andre Kertesz and Bill Brandt as well as John Szarkowski, director of the Museum of Modern Art, an experience that influenced her ideas about curatorship, and leading her to decide that the acquisition of important overseas material should become a priority.[18][19] To this end, South African apartheid photographer David Goldblatt and the equally controversial Czech Jan Saudek were given major shows, and their works purchased, during Boddington's tenure.

Returning to Sydney in 1994, she worked as a free-lance researcher, cataloguing the files and photographic archives of Australian Walkabout magazine and other collections in The Mitchell Library.

Publications

  • National Gallery of Victoria & Boddington, Jennie, 1922- & Sun News Pictorial (1972). Fifty years of press photography, 1922-1972. [National Gallery of Victoria], [Melbourne, Vic.]
  • YWCA (Australia) & Boddington, Jennie (1975). Woman 1975. East Melbourne[20]
  • Beaton, Cecil Sir & Boddington, Jennie, 1922- & National Gallery of Victoria (1975). Cecil Beaton's camera. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
  • Boddington, Jennie, 1922- & National Gallery of Victoria (1976). Modern Australian photographs : 28 April-27 June 1976. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
  • Boddington, Jennie, 1922- (1978). Antarctic photographs, 1910-1916 : Herbert Ponting Scott expedition (1910-13), Frank Hurley Mawson expedition (1911-13), Shackleton expedition (1914-16). Sun Books, South Melbourne, Vic
  • Boddington, Jennie, 1922- & National Gallery of Victoria (1978). Six series. National Gallery of Victoria, [Melbourne, Vic.]
  • Boddington, Jennie (1978). Laurie Wilson's landscapes and Jon Rhodes' Australia : Photography Gallery, June 7. National Gallery of Victoria, [s.l]
  • Hurley, Frank, 1885-1962 & Ponting, Herbert, 1870-1935 & Boddington, Jennie, 1922- (1979). Antarctic photographs 1910-1916. Macmillan, London
  • National Gallery of Victoria & Boddington, Jennie, 1922- (1979). Australian photographs from the collection. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
  • Hurley, Frank, 1885-1962 & Ponting, Herbert, 1870-1935 & Boddington, Jennie, 1922- (1979). Antarctic photographs, 1910-1916. London [etc.] Macmillan
  • Ponting, Herbert & Hurley, Frank, 1885-1962 & Boddington, Jennie, 1922- (1979). 1910-1916 Antarctic photographs : Scott, Mawson and Shackleton expeditions. Macmillan, South Melbourne, Vic
  • Boddington, Jennie & National Gallery of Victoria (1980). Micky Allan : Botany Bay today : Jillian Gibb : One year's work. The Gallery, Melbourne
  • National Gallery of Victoria & Boddington, Jennie, 1922- & Wilson, Laurie, 1920-1980 (1982). Laurie Wilson. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
  • Boddington, Jennie, 1922- & National Gallery of Victoria (1983). International photography : 100 images from the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria. The Gallery, [Melbourne* National Gallery of Victoria & Boddington, Jennie, 1922- (1985). Milestones in the art : famous photographs in gravure. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
  • National Gallery of Victoria & Boddington, Jennie, 1922- (1984). International photography : selected from the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria. The Gallery, Melbourne
  • National Gallery of Victoria & Boddington, Jennie, 1922- (1984). Architecture and photography 1848-1982 : photographs from the collection. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
  • National Gallery of Victoria & Boddington, Jennie, 1922- & Art Gallery of Ballarat (1985). Australian landscape photographed : an exhibition of photographs from the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria. National Gallery of Victoria, [Melbourne]
  • Boddington, Jennie, 1922- & National Gallery of Victoria (1987). Australian contemporary photographers : John Anthong Delacour, Peter Elliston, Jillian Gibb, Ruth Maddison, David Stephenson and Stephen Wickham. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
  • Boddington, Jennie & Drysdale, Russell Sir, 1912-1981 & National Gallery of Victoria (1987). Drysdale, photographer. National Gallery of Victoria , 1987, Melbourne
  • Boddington, Jennie & State Library of Victoria (1989). The new art : photographs by William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), La Trobe Collection, State Library of Victoria : Fox Talbot and the invention of photography. State Library of Victoria, [Melbourne, Vic.]

References

  1. ^ "Jennie Boddington". www.austlit.edu.au. Retrieved 2 June 2015.
  2. ^ Joan Long, 'Part Two of a Historical Survey of Women in Australian Film Production', Cinema Papers, September 1976, p. 139
  3. ^ Moran, Albert (1987) 'Documentary Consensus: The Commonwealth Film Unit: 1954–1964' in O'Regan, T and Shoesmith, B (eds) History on/and/in Film, Perth, History & Film Association of Australia
  4. ^ 'Ballet Film Has Woman Editor' Boddington interview in The Age, Wednesday, February 3, 1965 p.16
  5. ^ Luisa Alessi (2013). Heritage Assessment: Screen Australia, No. 101 Eton Road, Lindfield. Perumal Murphy Alessi, Heritage Consultants.
  6. ^ BODDINGTON, JENNIE : INTERVIEWED BY KEN BERRYMAN AND QUENTIN TURNOUR : ORAL HISTORY. National Film and Sound Archive, Australia, Record No. - 458163
  7. ^ 'Ballet Film Has Woman Editor' Boddington interview in The Age, Wednesday, February 3, 1965 p.16
  8. ^ which follows three immigrants to Australia, from Greece, Great Britain and Germany, fitting into industries and everyday life. Blackwood, Jennie & Boddington, Adrian & BP Australia & Zanthus Films (1981). Three in a million. Zanthus Films, Melbourne, Vic
  9. ^ Ely, Deborah History of Photography, 01 June 1999, Vol.23(2), p.118-122
  10. ^ Cox, Leonard B. The National Gallery of Victoria, 1861-1968: The Search for a Collection. Melbourne: The National Gallery of Victoria; Brown Prior Anderson Pty Ltd, 1971
  11. ^ Australian Photographer Carol Jerrems photographed Boddington at the NGV in 1974. See: Carol JERREMS Ivanhoe, Melbourne, Australia 1949 – 1980 "Curator of Photography, Jennie Boddington and photographer Melanie Le Guay at the National Gallery of Victoria) 1974
  12. ^ Minutes of the NGV Photographic Subcommittee. Melbourne, 16/05/1972 quoted in Tate, Suzanne. Photographic Collections in Victoria: Waverley City Gallery, Horsham Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Victoria: An Analysis of Past History and Future Directions. The University of Melbourne: Postgraduate Diploma Thesis, 1998, Chapter 2: The Photography Department of the National Gallery of Victoria. pp. 17-18.
  13. ^ Boddington, Jennie & National Gallery of Victoria (1980). Micky Allan : Botany Bay today : Jillian Gibb : One year's work. The Gallery, Melbourne
  14. ^ Boddington, Jennie (1978). Laurie Wilson's landscapes and Jon Rhodes' Australia : Photography Gallery, June 7. National Gallery of Victoria, [s.l]
  15. ^ National Gallery of Victoria & Boddington, Jennie, 1922- & Wilson, Laurie, 1920-1980 (1982). Laurie Wilson. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
  16. ^ Hurley, Frank, 1885-1962 & Ponting, Herbert, 1870-1935 & Boddington, Jennie, 1922- (1979). Antarctic photographs, 1910-1916. London [etc.] Macmillan
  17. ^ Boddington, Jennie & Drysdale, Russell Sir, 1912-1981 & National Gallery of Victoria (1987). Drysdale, photographer. National Gallery of Victoria , 1987, Melbourne
  18. ^ Crombie, Isobel. “Creating a Collection: International Photography at the National Gallery of Victoria,” in Re_View: 170 years of Photography. Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 2009, p. 9.
  19. ^ "Within the restrictions of what Mrs Boddington described as a meagre budget and with the assistance of grants from photographic companies she hopes to present exhibitions from the collcction every two months, including exhibitions from overseas on loan." Jennie Boddington quoted by Edna Boling in A Curator of Photographs', in The Canberra Times Thursday 28 November 1974, p.18
  20. ^ "THE NATIONAL Y.W.CA. of Australia is mounting a. exhibition of photographs of 'Women in 1975'. The exhibition will open simultaneously in Canberra, Melbourne and Adelaide on Wednesday, September 17. Canberra's exhibition will be opened by Katharine West, Senior Lecturer in Political Science at ANU, at 6pm on Wednesday and will be open to the public from Thursday, September, 18, until Wednesday, September 24. All expenses of the exhibition are being met from the International Women's Year Government grant. More than 150 photo graphs have been selected from 1,500 submitted by Jennie Boddington, curator of Photography at the National Gallery in Melbourne. The exhibition will travel round Australia to all YWCA centres." The Canberra Times Thursday 11 September 1975, p.15

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