Alec Murray was born to a well-known South Australian pastoral family that lived on a property named 'Murray Park' (now an Adelaide Suburb). He moved to Sydney in the 1940s where he became a successful portrait photographer, and in 1947 Sydney Ure Smith published 'Alec Murray's Album: Personalities of Australia'.

Murray then moved on to London where he received considerable notoriety as a fashion and portrait photographer through his regular contributions to Country Life, The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, The Sunday Times, Vanity Fair, UK Vogue, Tatler, Queen and the Australian Women's Weekly.

The archive comprehensively represents Murray's style and oeuvre as a fashion and portrait photographer. It contains fashion photography for Galitzine, Pierre Balmain, Dior, Dormieul, Yves St Laurent, Courreges, Givenchy, Lanvin, and other leading European fashion houses, and a substantial group of portraits including Kerry Packer as a child, Sir Robert Menzies, Sir Sidney Nolan and many others. Importantly, Murray also worked as photographer to the Royal family for over a decade - from his coverage of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1952 for Paris Match through to visiting Sandringham in 1970 to photograph Royal family life on New Year's Day.

The archive is a unique record of Alec Murray's commercial and artistic collaborations with writers, editors, friends, artists, actors, directors and designers over several decades.

References:
Susan Owens, Alec Murray obituary, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 July 2002
Christine France, Alec Murray 1917-2002, Art & Australia, Autumn 2004, pp 404-405
Tatlock Miller et al, Alec Murray Album, Personalities of Australia, Ure Smith, Sydney, 1947
Christine France, Donald Friend: Merioola and Friends, http://www.nla.gov.au/events/donaldfriend/papers/cfrance.html Accessed 1 August 2007
Biography, [compiled by Alec and Sue Murray with Christine France and ???/], undated.
Loudon Sainthill Fellowship, http://www.nida.edu.au/THE-LOUDON-SAINTHILL-FELLOWSHIP/default.aspx
Sally O'Neill, Loudon Sainthill, Australian Dictionary of Biography online edition, http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A160195b.htm

Biography: Alexander George Campbell (Alec) Murray, photographer, 1917-2002
Prepared by Anne-Marie Van de Ven, 2008

1917: Born to well-known South Australian pastoral family that lived on a property named 'Murray Park' (now an Adelaide Suburb bearing the same name).
Alec Murray's interest in photography began when his great-aunt died and left the family a collection of photographs and early full glass-plate negatives cameras. His interest was also further encouraged by the gift of a Box Brownie camera.
1923: Attended Wilderness School at Medindie, SA.
1926: Attended St Peters College, Adelaide (1926-1934)
1935: Worked as a jackaroo on his uncle's property, 'Woodside' outside Adelaide.
Late 1930s/1940: Moved to Sydney to study in the photographic studios of John Lee.
1939: During WWII, Alec was excluded from military service as he was a diabetic. However he served with the Royal Navy as an official photographer.
Following his discharge, he moved into Merioola. There Murray met and formed lasting friendships with artist and costume designer Joclyn Rickards, art critic and later director of Redfern Galleries, London, Harry Tatlock Miller, and theatre designer Loudon Sainthill.
Murray described the experience in correspondence to Christine France as 'an idealistic time in which all benefited from the freedom of thought and action, but in a way it was a bit like living in a houseful of hopeful children.' (Christine France, Donald Friend: Merioola and Friends, http://www.nla.gov.au/events/donaldfriend/papers/cfrance.html
Accessed 1 August 2007)
Mid-1940s: Influenced by French film makers, Georges Mêliès, René Clair, and Jean Renoir (Grand Illusion, 1930s)
1947: Participated in Merioola Group exhibition[s] held at David Jones gallery.
Sydney Ure Smith published Alec Murray's Album. Many of the pictures published were taken in Merioola.
Worked as a photographer for the Ballet Rambert tour of Australia 1947-1948.
1948: Nominated by Laurence Olivier as official photographer for the Old Vic Theatre Company during its Australian tours (catalogue commissioned by the British Council).
Writer Harry Tatlock Miller and artist Jocyln Rickards organised going-away cocktail party for Murray. Moved to London and never returned to live in Australia.
1949: Moves to South Kensington London where he's joined by Rickards, Harry Tatlock Miller and Loudon Sainthill. All four expatriates established highly successful careers over the next twenty years.
Jocelyn Rickards (1924-2005, become a well known costume designer for stage and screen, fashion designer on the film, Blow-up.)
Loudon Sainthill (b. Tasmania 1918, d. London 1969) pursues a career as a theatre designer in England and his life long partner, Harry Tatlock Miller (1913-1989) becomes a director of the Redfern Gallery in London before establishing the Loudon Sainthill Memorial Scholarship Trust travelling scholarship for young Australian theatre designers in 1970.
By 1951: AM had his own studio.
1952: Paris Match employed him to cover the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and he remained their London photographer for over a decade.
1954: As London staffer for Australian Women's Weekly flown to Paris to photograph Dior latest fashions. (Ref: Alexander Joel, Parade, p.148)
1960s:
Murray received considerable notoriety through his regular contributions to Country Life, The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, The Sunday Times, Vanity Fair, UK Vogue, Tatler, Queen and the Australian Women's Weekly, and Melbourne Herald. Writer Clive Turnbull dubs Murray 'Australia's Cecil Beaton' (source?).
Murray travels to Paris for the couture collections - Coco Chanel, Hubert de Givenchy, Madame Gres, Pierre Cardin and Givenchy.
Often, the only access Murray had to the gowns was at night after the parades where he would take the models outdoors at night, producing remarkable images like that of a model in Claude Riviére gown framed dramatically by the art-nouveau entrance to the Paris Metro.
Susan Owens recollected in the 1980s that when she was a fashion writer in the London office of AWW with fashion editor Anne Matheson who regularly commissioned Murray, that Murray 'was the darling of the Chanel, Givency, and Madame Grés fashion houses.
Murray was also a popular photographer with people involved in the theatre arts - Sir John Gielgud, Sir Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Paul Schofield, Dame Joan Sutherland, Rudolf Nureyev and many others were captured by his lens.
Murray met and married model Sue Robins, who went on to become a leading fashion stylist and costume designer.
He occasionally travelled to Sydney to stay with one of his oldest and dearest friends, Margaret Olley.
1970: January 1 - Alec Murray with his assistant Mike Martin travelled to Sandringham to photograph the Royal family.
1985: Covered Paris fashion collections with fashion writer Anne Price for Country Life magazine. Retired.
1995: 4 portraits included in 'High Society: society portraiture and photographers 1920-1960' exhibition, National Portrait Gallery, Canberra. Curated by Julia Clark.
2001: Alec and Sue Murray living Wilton St, Belgravia, London (weekends spent in their country house near Lambourn in Berkshire)
Murray notes that Horst P Horst, Cartier Bresson and George Hoyningen-Huene had been important influences over the years.
A retrospective of his work 'Alec Murray Album' was shown at the National Trust's SH Ervin Gallery in 2001 and the Mornington Peninsular Regional Gallery in Victoria in 2002.

References:
Susan Owens, Alec Murray obituary, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 July 2002
Christine France, Alec Murray 1917-2002, Art & Australia, Autumn 2004, pp 404-405
Tatlock Miller et al, Alec Murray Album, Personalities of Australia, Ure Smith, Sydney, 1947
Christine France, Donald Friend: Merioola and Friends, http://www.nla.gov.au/events/donaldfriend/papers/cfrance.html Accessed 1 August 2007
Biography, [compiled by Alec and Sue Murray with Christine France and ???/], undated.
Loudon Sainthill Fellowship, http://www.nida.edu.au/THE-LOUDON-SAINTHILL-FELLOWSHIP/default.aspx
Sally O'Neill, Loudon Sainthill, Australian Dictionary of Biography online edition, http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A160195b.htm

The archive is presented as a donation from Sue Murray (nee Robins), widow of the photographer, with the assistance of Christine France, curator of the SH Ervin gallery's Alec Murray retrospective exhibition.

Alec Murray was born on 9 February 1917 to an Australian pastoralist family in South Australia, where they lived on a property called Murray Park. His father was Douglas Murray, and his mother, English actress Madge Campbell. Alec Murray was educated at St Peter's College, Adelaide, and spent some time working as a jackaroo on his uncle's property. However, his interest lay in photography, and had done since a young age.

During World War II, Murray served with the Royal Navy as an official photographer. This posting resulted from a determined effort on his part to join up: because he was an insulin-dependant diabetic, he had initially been excluded from military service.

After the war, Murray moved to a Sydney boarding house named Merioola, a veritable fraternity of Australian artists. Here he met individuals with whom he was to remain lifelong friends: artist and costume designer Jocelyn Rickards; art and ballet critic (and subsequently director of the Redfern Galleries, London) Harry Tatlock Miller; and theatre designer Loudon Sainthill.

Alec Murray became a noted photographer of Australian society figures, diplomats, designers, artists, actors, musicians, and fashion. In 1947-1948 a collection of his portraits (largely of society women and artists) were published in the book 'Alec Murray's Album: Personalities in Australia'. Murray was appointed official Australian photographer to the Old Vic Theatre Company by Sir Laurence Olivier, contributing to a catalogue of their Australian tour commissioned by the British Council.

In 1949 he moved to South Kensington, London, England. Here he was joined soon afterwards by his friends Rickards, Miller and Sainthill, all of whom were to establish highly successful careers. Here, Murray's work became much more commercial and centred on fashion. He never returned to live in Australia. By 1951 Murray had his own studio, and covered the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II for 'Paris Match' the following year.

In the 1960s, Murray met and married model (and subsequently costume designer) Sue Robins.

Alec Murray was a stylish, debonair and witty individual. He would arrive for fashion shoots for Paris couture houses in a Rolls Royce, smoking Italian cigars, and characteristically immaculately attired in a white suit. A particular favourite of the Chanel, Givenchy and Madame Grés fashion houses, he was also a popular photographer with theatre figures such as Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir John Gielgud, Sir Alec Guinness, Ralph Richardson, Dame Joan Sutherland, and others. Murray made regular contributions to 'Country Life', 'The Daily Telegraph', 'The Sunday Telegraph', 'The Sunday Times', 'Vanity Fair', 'Vogue', 'Tatler', 'Queen' and 'The Australian Women's Weekly'. On New Year's Day of 1970, he photographed the Royal family at Sandringham.

Alec Murray died on 11 July 2002 at the age of eighty-five. He was survived by his wife Sue Murray, with whom he lived in both London and Berkshire residences.


Sources:

2008/18/1-1 Negatives, black & white, Alec Murray, Australia/Europe, 1945-1994

2008/18/1-4 Correspondence, Alec Murray, England, 1945-1994

2008/18/1-7 Documents, collected by Alec Murray, Australia/Europe, 1960-1994

France, Christine, "Alec Murray: 1917-2002", Art and Australia, pp. 404-405 [Autumn 2004].

France, Christine. "Donald Friend: Merioola and Friends" [Accessed: 27 May 2010]
http://www.nla.gov.au/events/donaldfriend/papers/cfrance.html

Miller, Tatlock, ed. "Alec Murray's Album: Personalities in Australia", Sydney: Ure Smith Pty. Ltd. [1947-1948].

"Obituary: Alec Murray", The Daily Telegraph, 22 July 2002 [Accessed: 27 May 2010] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1402109/Alec-Murray.html

Archive, photographic, fashion and portraits, photographs by Alexander George Campbell (Alec) Murray (1917-2002), Australia/Europe, 1945-1994

The archive consists of black & white negatives, colour transparencies, photographic prints (black & white and colour), as well as correspondence, magazines and magazine clippings, and a business card.

It includes photographs for leading European fashion houses such as Galitzine, Simonetta, Fabiani, Capucci, Nina Ricci, Pierre Balmain, Pierre Cardin, Louis Ferraud, Dior, Dormieul, and Chanel. It also includes portraits of royalty, actors, singers and other prominent figures in Europe and Australia: the Royal family (Queen Elizabeth, Prince Phillip, Princess Anne, Prince Charles), Lady Caroline Somerset, Lord and Lady Astor, Jean Shrimpton and Terence Stamp, Dolores del Rio, Lena Horne, Daniela Bianchi, Peter Cushing, Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir Michael Redgrave, Sir Alec Guinness, Dame Joan Sutherland, Kerry Packer, Clytie Jessop, Harry Miller, Carol Browne, Sir Robert Menzies, Sir Sidney Nolan, and others.

Made: Murray, Alec; ; 1945 - 1994

2008/18/1

1945 - 1994