The seeing eye

October 31st, 2012 by Kathy Hackett

For some reason, the more I look at this photograph the more I like it, despite the huge puff of smoke, or maybe because of it? I’m wondering if readers will feel the same way? There’s something mysterious about it, so I decided to ask Christopher Beck the photographer to tell me more:

I took it as a student at Prahran College in 1984 for a series highlighting the differences between my mother and father and finishing with an image of them together: he shy retiring liking solitude; she gregarious loving a chat.

Designer and photographer Richard Beck (1912-1985) is the artist behind many fine Australian graphics including the Wynns Coonawarra vineyard wine label designed way back in the early 1950s and still used today. Perhaps that’s the lovely red he’s holding in the photograph? This portrait was publish recently in Professor John Hughson’s article on D*Hub about Beck’s designs for the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games poster and street decorations. It is drawn from the Powerhouse Museum’s Richard Beck design archive.

Post by Anne-Marie Van de Ven, Curator Design and Society

Photography by Chris Beck

Tags: couples, designers, portraits, smoking

The Powerhouse Museum's Photo of the Day blog features a new image each day, chosen from the Powerhouse Photo Library.

The majority of these images have been taken by Museum photographers for a variety of purposes such as for exhibitions, of objects in our collection, events, behind-the-scenes and location shots. We also feature many images taken by our Flickr community and from our visitors. We hope you enjoy the photographs and stories.

The licensing of each image varies however we are trying to release as many as possible under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.1 license.