The photographs produced by Frank Hurley during his time as the official photographer for the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (1911–14), and his subsequent texts, dramatically convey the awe-inspiring gargantuan icebergs encountered in the region. ‘No grander sight have I ever witnessed among the wonders of Antarctica,’ Hurley wrote of the icebergs in the area where this photograph was taken. ‘We threaded a way down lanes of vivid blue with shimmering walls of mammoth bergs rising like castles of jade on either side.’ This photograph is, at first appearance, a sublimely ‘true’ representation of an iceberg. On closer inspection, however, subtle alterations become apparent. More real than real, Hurley’s constructed image was celebrated at the time and continues to be.
Frank Hurley
Australian 1890–1962
No title (A turreted berg) 1913
carbon print
43.4 x 59.4 cm (image and sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1999
