Ed Douglas: A Brief Biographical Statement

As my CV indicates, I was born in California in the Spanish mission town of San Rafael. My father was an amateur painter and had a strong interest in photography. In my teenage years I spent much of my time building a 32 Ford five window coupe, a souped-up hot rod, this had a lot to do with my just scraping through high school.    

At the local two-year college, College of Marin, I became quite involved with photography, the visual arts, and my education as-a-whole. I was 18, an introvert trying to find my path in life. The photographic work that I produced gained some attention and as my involvement became deeper my future path in life became clearer.

Next, I attended the San Francisco Art Institute where we were made to work exclusively with a 4x5 view camera. There was a strong leaning toward the ideas and attitude of Ansel Adams, who initiated the course. This, I came to realise, was not my direction. 

Later, I was accepted into the visual arts course at San Francisco State University where I received my BA degree (1967) and MA degree (1969). As an undergraduate, I worked with Don Worth & John Gutmann, and for my MA I worked with Professor Jack Welpott. While a graduate student I became a paid assistant to Imogen Cunningham (in her 80s) when she was hired to teach a photography subject.

At SF State I became involved with printmaking and sculpture along with my main emphasis of photography. Environment can mean so much in one’s education. The late 60s and early 70s in the US and California were a Renaissance period. There was a wonderfully rich diversity of artists using photography, people like Jerry Uelsmann, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Lee Friedlander, Emmet Gowin, Lewis Baltz, Ralph Gibson, Fred Sommers, Robert Cummings, Ed Ruscha, Robert Heinecken, Ray Metzker, John Baldessari, Duane Michals among many others. At the same time in San Francisco there remained a strong influence of the earlier locals who included Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Dorthea Lange, Brett Weston, and Wynn Bullock. This was an extraordinary time of visual stimulation, conceptual diversity, intellectual and technical challenges.

Immediately after graduation I taught a photography workshop at SF State and was given a teaching position at College of Marin where I had previously studied. I also taught workshops through the University of California, San Francisco. During this period, I became a founding member of the Visual Dialogue Foundation (VDF) which included two of my lecturers from SF State (Jack Welpott & Don Worth) along with Oliver Gagliani and several ex-students including: Judy Dater, Linda Connor, Leland Rice, Mike Bishop, and others.

 The VDF became an influential group in the San Francisco Bay Area. We had several exhibitions and produced a portfolio that sold to major art galleries and museums across the US and in Europe.

I met Gael, an Australian, in 1969 and we travelled to Mexico in 1971 and Europe in 1972 with her two children.  About the time Nixon was elected president we decided to move to Australia and arrived in Sydney in February 1973. Here I had the feeling that I may be the only person in Australia with a MA degree in the visual arts!  As far as I could ascertain, BA degrees were not being offered in art schools at that time.                                                                                                          
The Australian Centre for Photography (ACP) was established in 1973 by David Moore & Wes Stacey.  I gravitated to that institution as a ray of hope for photography. I taught workshops at the Tasmanian School of Art; I also curated an exhibition of VDF work and the work of a few other California photographers. That exhibition showed at the National Gallery of Victoria and the Australian Centre for Photography.

In 1976 I lectured at the Sydney College of the Arts, Balmain with John Williams.  Also, that year I gave a workshop at the ACP.  I became a member of a small group of photographers that included John Williams, Carol Jerrems, Robert MacFarlane, and Greg Weight. 

In 1977 I moved to Adelaide to create the first BA level photography course in South Australia for the South Australian School of Art. The scale of the job was incredibly demanding. The photography facility was in the process of being installed, a Besser block at a time, as ‘J’ Building was being completed at the Torrens Campus, Underdale. On my first day I was shown the design for the photography facility along with the planned usage. I soon realised that the facility design was totally inadequate. I discussed the problems with the architect who wanted my drawings ‘immediately’. I had the weekend to redesign the facility. That was week one! 

My next task was to write, in detail, the three-year course (the first year of the four-year course was a common year for all students). In 1977 there wasn’t a single artist using photography in Adelaide who had a national reputation. To find experienced and professional staff, and to interest students, many who knew almost nothing about the medium, was another challenge.

Photography in Adelaide, even amongst some of my art colleagues, was not taken seriously. I worked seven days a week for several years to establish the course. After seven years when our department funding was mishandled by the Art School’s administration I resigned as head of the department. Fiona Hall, whom I had brought to Adelaide to teach, took over. Later Mark Kimber, who had graduated with a BA from the course, and who had been hired to teach, became the head of the department. I lectured at the SASA for 24 years and retired in 2001.

I like to think that I had an influence on some developments for photography in SA. There are several artists/photographers, who graduated from the course that I initiated in 1977, who have national and international reputations in the visual arts. To name a few: Mark Kimber, Deborah Pauuwe, Darren Siwes, Kate Breakey, Joe McGlennon, Nici Cumpston, Jackie Redgate. Kate Breakey now lives in the US and has had several books of her work published. Deborah Pauuwe and Mark Kimber both have books of their work published.

It took a few years to recover from the stressful and toxic environment that university education in the visual arts had become. I had lost contact with the tread of my ideas and had to re-find where my creative ‘soul’ resided. After a few years my ideas took shape and my output increased as this website will confirm. Being retired I have worked as hard as ever to produce the finest work possible. In the process of re-establishing my connection with my creative ‘soul’, I decided to acknowledge and develop every idea that seemed an interesting challenge. For the past 20+ years that is exactly what I have done. The variety of ideas I have pursued and exhibited are all from the same complex being – me! My past ideas remain active, and I often add new works to the groupings of works I have previously shown. I didn’t die at 58 when I retired because I opened myself to ideas as they appeared. I’m alive and working at 80 following the same philosophy. As I write this in November 2023 there are 30 newly framed works in my studio.      

My life’s work has been in the visual arts, both as an artist exploring his ideas and as a tertiary level art lecturer.  During my studies I became aware that there is a dividing line in photography between the ‘takers’ and the ‘makers’ – I have done both, but at the heart of my creativity, I have tended to side with the ‘makers’.  My work was and remains strongly influenced by the ideas around the ‘constructed image’. I am attracted to what might be described as a ‘poetic narrative’; I enjoy the energy that comes from blending photographic fact with a created narrative.

Bending the photographic image to satisfy one’s artistic impulses has been an active aspect within photography from its very beginning in 1839. This is not generally acknowledged by the Australian arts public, but this is the place from where my art resides.