Athol Shmith

Athol Shmith
Athol Shmith, 1976 photographed by Carol Jerrems (1949–1980)
Born	Louis Athol Shmith 19 August 1914 Melbourne, Australia
Died	21 October 1990(1990-10-21) (aged 76)
Nationality	Australian
Known for	Photography
Spouse(s)	Yvonne Pearl Slater (m. 1939; div. 1948) Patricia Tuckwell (m. 1948; div. 1958) Paule Grant Hay (m. 1967–90; his death)

Louis Athol Shmith (19 August 1914 – 21 October 1990) was a celebrated studio portrait and fashion photographer and photography educator in his home city of Melbourne, Australia, and contributed to the promotion of international photography within Australia as much as to the fostering of Australian photography in the world scene.

Shmith was born in Melbourne in 1914 and came from a comfortable and cultured middle-class family; his father was a respected chemist and a fine pianist. Athol Shmith played the vibraphone and considered music as a possible career. His father gave him a camera as a teenager and what was a hobby became a profession in his late teens when Shmith, who had an interest in theatre and played at charity performances, was asked to take the publicity photographs and stills for a show. He saw there was a career in his former hobby and, supported by his family, established a studio in St Kilda. For the first five years he specialised in theatre work and society and wedding portraits through which he first made his reputation, but his professional break had come in the early 1930s when he gained the contract to take portraits of visiting celebrities for the newly formed Australian Broadcasting Commission.

In 1939 he moved to a studio in the Rue de la Paix building at 125 Collins Street, run with the assistance of his brother Clive, and sister, Verna, who was his receptionist and who became an expert negative retoucher. The studio had originally been fitted out for Helena Rubenstein, and retained her elegant powder blue and deep pink fittings. Shmith's work expanded to include a range of commercial advertising and illustration and appeared in local society magazines. He exhibited his works in photographic salons at home and abroad, gaining a Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society in 1933. At the age of just 19 he was appointed Vice-Regal Photographer in Melbourne. He long held the contract for stage and publicity photography for theatre producer J.C. Williamson Limited.

Influenced in his early career by the soft impressionistic style of turn-of-the-century art photographers, Shmith later embraced the clearer light, bolder compositions and design emphasis of art deco modernism which he admired in the fashion, product and portrait work of (Sir) Cecil Beaton, Edward Steichen and Hollywood portraitist George Hurrell. By the late 1930s, he was seen as representing a new modern style of work. After World War II Shmith embraced the "New Look" and the spirit of post-war recovery in fashion illustration, becoming the most respected professional in the field in Australia. The studio was increasingly associated with zestful, creative fashion photography. Shmith, who prided himself on his skill in lighting, had learned much from the model of European modernism and the quirkiness of surrealism. He was also indebted to the top-lit and back-lit glowing ‘Hollywood lighting’ style of portraiture popularised by Californian photographer George Hurrell in the 1920s and 1930s. He described his portrait of actress Vivien Leigh in costume as lit by his 'inky dinky light', a top spotlight diffused by tracing paper. Shmith treated his female sitters and models as princesses. In 1950 John Cato, the son of Jack Cato became co-director of Shmith's studio. From the 1960s Shmith responded to cultural shifts with a freeing-up of the style and setting of his fashion photographs. He moved from the studio into everyday environments, like the street and beach. Shmith acknowledged as his inspiration during this period the work of Richard Avedon.