Mark Strizic

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Mark Strizic (b.1928 Berlin, d. Wallan 2012) migrated to Australia from Croatia in 1950 and became a widely published architectural and industrial photographer, portraitist of significant Australians, and fine art photographer/painter known for his multimedia mural work. He, and other postwar immigrant photographers Wolfgang Sievers, Henry Talbot, Richard Woldendorp, Bruno Benini, Margaret Michaelis, Dieter Muller, David Mist and Helmut Newton brought modernism to Australian photography. He taught photography at tertiary level in Melbourne from 1978, and in 1984 he became a full time artist, photographer and designer. The winner of a number of photographic awards and grants, he exhibited his work widely since 1958. Strizic's work is represented in the Australian National Gallery and several state galleries and in corporate collections. He settled in Richmond, subsequently moving with his wife Sue to Surrey Hills, Melbourne, and finally to Wallan in country Victoria, living there until his death in 2012.

Career

Strizic was born in 1928 in Berlin, where his father Zdenko Von Strizic , (1902-1990) was studying and practising architecture (later becoming a Professor of Architecture). His mother was a textile designer, trained in Berlin, who contributed to his Zdenko Von Strizic's practice. In 1934, in reaction to Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor, the family fled to Zagreb, Yugoslavia (now Croatia). There Strizic began to study physics and geology. At the end of WW2 Strizic fled to Austria as a refugee following the liberation of Yugoslavia to escape the Communist regime. As there was a five-year waiting period to emigrate to the United States, he decided to go instead to Australia and departed Naples on the converted Australian Navy seaplane carrier [HMAS_Albatross_(1928)|Hellenic Prince], arriving in Melbourne in April 1950. There his good spoken English soon gained him a position as a clerk with the Victorian Railways Reclamation Department, and he resumed his studies in physics part-time at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.

In 1952 he married Hungarian-born Sue. Strizic bought his first camera, a Dianette, and began to photograph his environment , developing a love of strong light which he found abundant under the clear skies of his adopted city. He enjoyed contre-jour (shooting into the sun) and low afternoon side-lighting effects for their high-contrast graphic silhouettes in black and white prints, and that became his signature style for his historically and culturally significant photographs of post-war Melbourne. His abandonment of physics in 1957 for a career in photography was encouraged by his father (who visited Melbourne in 1957 as guest professor at the School of Architecture Melbourne University ) and through his friendship with David Saunders (who had stayed with Strizic’s parents in Yugoslavia in 1952 ). Saunders, a Senior Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Melbourne who was then acting Assistant Director at the National Gallery of Victoria, provided increasingly frequent photography commissions. In 1957 Saunders introduced him to Leonard French, an artist and the Gallery's Exhibitions Officer, who asked him to document exhibitions, including the 1959 retrospective of cabinet maker Schulim Krimper’s furniture. Postwar industrialisation in Australia led then to work for BHP and Humes Limited and McPhersons, photographing the plants, manufacturing, products and workers for annual reports and advertising, while the concurrent housing boom provided further opportunities.

Again through Saunders, in 1958, Strizic met modernist Robin Boyd of architectural firm Grounds, Romberg and Boyd, who became a major clients. Boyd controversially criticised Australian suburban culture in his book The Australian Ugliness of 1960, and likewise Strizic’s photography began to illustrate Australians' disdain for their architectural heritage and their scant regard for the visual aesthetics of their urban environment amidst the destruction of magnificent Gold Rush era buildings and verandahs and their replacement by high-rise modernist office-blocks. His work was widely published in architectural books and journals but also illustrated social commentary during this period of a national identity crisis with frequent contributions of his photo-essays to [Walkabout_magazine|Walkabout], Australia Today and other travel magazines (see below the range of books containing his photographs). In 1960 Strizic joined David Saunders to produce Melbourne: A Portrait, stating 'Its central thought is that while men make cities, the cities also affect the men'

Fine Art

Having become the first photographer to exhibit solo at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1968 and the first whose work was acquired by the National Gallery of Australia, Strizic moved more emphatically into fine art, finding a market for large scale mural installations amongst corporate clients. He began combining, enlarging, cropping and transforming elements from his black and white negatives through montage, then colourising and posterising the monochrome images in the manner associated with Pop Art. Symbols of urban ugliness such as power poles and billboards were his subject matter and critical target in often apocalyptic imagery intended to provoke a social consciousness. He was an early adopter of digital imaging techniques in producing such murals.

Influence

Strizic lectured in photography at a number of tertiary education institutions including Preston (Phillip) Institute of Technology (1975-1977); Melbourne College of Advanced Education (Lecturer in Charge of Photography 1977-1982); part-time lecturer in Photography at the Victorian College of the Arts (1982-1984).

Books by or illustrated by Strizic:

• Barrett, R. D. (2009). 1950-1975: Building Modern Australia (Vol. 8). Australia: Macmillan Education
• Beatty, B., & Beatty, W. A. (1966). Around Australia with Bill Beatty. Cassell Australia.
• Buckrich, Judith with Keith Dunstan, Rohan Storey and Marc Strizic (2005) Collins: The story of Australia’s premier street. Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne
• Burstall, Tim. & Ryan, Patrick.  1968,  Two thousand weeks [Book designed by Mark Strizic & George Smith]  Sun Books, Melbourne.
• Royal Victorian Institute of Architects. (1956). Guide to Victorian architecture, 1956: A brief illustrated record of architectural development in Victoria, and in Melbourne the capital. Melbourne: Royal Victorian Institute of Architects.
• Edquist, H., & Black, R. (2009). The Architecture of Neil Clerehan. RMIT Publishing.
• Gray, Garrick. & Strizic, Mark. & Steinward, Uwe.  ([197-?]).  The Garrick Australian picture book.  Melbourne :  G. Gray
• Howley, John. & Strizic, Mark.  (1971).  The phallic totem witness series.  [S.l :  s.n]
• Lane, Terence. & Strizic, Mark. & Krimper, Schulim.  (1987).  Schulim Krimper : cabinet-maker : a tribute.  South Yarra, Vic. :  Gryphon Books
• Macainsh, Noel. and Pugh, Clifton. (1962) Clifton Pugh [photography by Mark Strizic]  Georgian House, Melbourne
• Kennedy, G. (1967). Graham Kennedy's Melbourne. Thomas Nelson (Australia).
• Potts, J. D. S. (1966). Australian outrage: the decay of a visual environment. Ure Smith.
• Pugh, Clifton. & Strizic, Mark. & Grimwade, Andrew Sheppard (1968).  Involvement : the portraits of Clifton Pugh and Mark Strizic; The work.  Melbourne :  Sun Books
• Spate, V. (1963). John Olsen. Georgian House.
• Stirling, A. (1967). Melbourne in Colour and Black-and-white. Lansdowne.
• Strizic, Mark. & Monash Gallery of Art.  (2003).  Mark Strizic : a journey in photography Wheelers Hill, Vic. :  Monash Gallery of Art
• Strizic, Mark. & Matthews, Emma. & Jones, Barry. & State Library of Victoria.  (2009).  Mark Strizic : Melbourne: marvellous to modern.  Fishermans Bend, Vic. : Melbourne :  Thames and Hudson Australia ; published in association with State Library of Victoria
• Strizic, Mark. & Flinders University Art Museum.  (1984).  Town country and soul : photographic works by Mark Strizic.  Bedford Park, S.A. :  Flinders University Art Museum
• Strizic, Mark. & Saunders, David.  (1960).  Melbourne : a portrait.  Melbourne :  Georgian House

Selected Exhibitions:

• Melbourne’s Twelve Best Buildings, National Gallery of Victoria (with Athol Shmith) 1958.
• Mark Strizic photography, Argus Gallery [Melbourne], February 11–22 1963.
• Australian personalities - an exhibition of photographic portraits by Mark Strizic, Verdon Gallery, National Gallery of Victoria, 24 May-9 June, 1968.
• The fall of the shadow - Mark Strizic, Church Street Photographic Centre, Richmond, Melbourne, November 16-December 4, 1977.
• Town, country and soul - photographic works by Mark Strizic, Gryphon Gallery [Melbourne], 26 March-13 April, 1984.
• The 1950's - photographs by Mark Strizic, Gryphon Gallery [Melbourne], 16-20 October, 1987.
• Photographs by John Cato, Wolfgang Sievers, Mark Strizic 1955-75 (Aspects of Victorian photography I), National Gallery of Victoria, Photography Gallery, third flloor, 2 April-19 June, 1988.
• Modern furniture Melbourne 1960s–1980s as photographed by Mark Strizic, The Cardigan Street Gallery, 12 December 1997 – 26 January 1998
• Mark Strizic - paintings and collages, Acland Street Art Gallery [St. Kilda, Victoria], 6 September-6 October, 1989
• Melbourne life exhibition, Lower Melbourne Town Hall. 7-30 1992.
• Inner sanctum - Noel Flood - ceramic sculpture, Werner Hammerstingl - photography and mixed media, Mark Strizic - photography and mixed media, Doncaster Gallery [Melbourne], 3-21 December, 1993.
• Melbourne in the '60's - an exhibition of photographs by Mark Strizic, Christine Abrahams Gallery [Richmond, Victoria], 14-31 August, 1995.
• Unity of fragmentation - paintings on prepared canvas & associated works by Mark Strizic. Quadrivium, 2-50 Level 2 South, Queen Victoria Building, George Street, Sydney, 20 February-12 March 1996.
• Late moderism Melbourne - an exhibition of photographs by Mark Strizic, 1996, 12 December, 1996-21 January 1997.
• Mark Strizic : contre jour, Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, 24 February–27 March, 1999.
• Mark Strizic : contre jour, Greenaway Art Gallery, 31 March – 25 April, 1999. Catalogue essay by Emma Matthews.
• Melbourne: Mid-century images, Gallery 101, 101 Collins Street Melbourne. 14 March – 1 April 2006
• As Modern as Tomorrow: Photographers in Postwar Melbourne, State Library of Victoria, Keith Murdoch Gallery 1 July 2011–5 February 2012

Work in Collections:

• National Library of Australia
• The State Library of Victoria acquired Mark Strizic's entire archive collection of approximately 5000 negatives, colour transparencies and slides in 2007.
• National Gallery of Australia
• National Gallery of Victoria
• Art Gallery of New South Wales

Murals:

Include:

• The ICI Australia Research Mural. Inaugurated August 8, 1988.
• Australian Pavilion, Spokane Expo. Commissioned by the Australian Government.
• Queensland University Sports Club
• Flinders University Medical Centre.
• Monash University Library, Clayton, Melbourne.

Awards:

The Visual Art/ Craft Board's Emeritus Fellowship 1993 (also awarded that year to Olive Cotton, Nora Heysen and Peter Rushforth)