Wolfgang Sievers Hon.FAIPP

Wolfgang Sievers was born in Berlin in 1913 to an art historian father and a Jewish writer and educator mother. In pre-war Europe he studied photography in Berlin and the philosophies of the Bauhaus School underpinned his photographic education. Unable to pursue his chosen field of architecture due to the political regime, he worked for a short time in Portugal as a photographer of architecture, landscape and art where he has been honoured by the Portuguese Government by being invited to hold a major exhibition in Portugal later this year.

Escaping Nazi Germany in 1938 for Australia, he continued as a photographer, setting up his studio in Melbourne. His early industrial work consisted of assignments reflecting the strength and drama of man in industry. His later architectural and industrial images are notable for their transformation of the everyday into the graphic, spectacular, crowd-stopping images for which he has become renowned. Often controversial, his strong beliefs, intolerance of racism and increasing concern at the destructive practices of capitalism also led him to question the morality behind many corporate entities, in many cases his clients. Wolfgang Sievers is a speaker to stir your imagination and remind image-makers of the vast reservoir of creative and technical expertise that underpins photography as a profession