A major new exhibition at NGV International will showcase more than 300 works by over 70 pioneering women photographers from the 20th century. Women Photographers 1900–1975: A Legacy of Light opens 28 November 2025, featuring rare and innovative photographs, prints, postcards and photobooks, with more than 170 works recently acquired and 130 displayed for the first time.
The exhibition charts seven decades of image-making against the backdrop of global social, political and cultural change, from the suffrage movement to the women’s liberation era. It explores how these photographers shaped visual culture through portraiture, fashion, experimental imagery, documentary work and photojournalism.
Artists on display include international icons Diane Arbus, Dorothea Lange, Dora Maar, Lee Miller, Berenice Abbott and Tina Modotti, alongside Australian trailblazers Olive Cotton, Sue Ford and Ponch Hawkes. The exhibition highlights networks of collaboration and exchange between women across continents, underscoring their influence in a male-dominated medium.
Highlights include Dora Maar’s intimate portraits of Pablo Picasso, Dorothea Lange’s enduring Migrant Mother, Ilse Bing’s modernist self-portrait, Olive Cotton’s striking Teacup ballet and Ponch Hawkes’ vivid documentation of Melbourne’s activist scene in the 1970s.
The NGV notes that many works are the result of a targeted collecting push to foreground women artists, supported by the Bowness Family Foundation, Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family, and other patrons.
Parliamentary Secretary for Creative Industries Katie Hall said the exhibition celebrates artists who documented life from “vastly different places and perspectives.” NGV Director Tony Ellwood AM added that it represents ongoing efforts to redress gender imbalance in collections worldwide.
Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of International Women’s Year, the exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated publication with essays from leading scholars and curators.
Women Photographers 1900–1975: A Legacy of Light runs from 28 November 2025 to 3 May 2026 at NGV International, St Kilda Road. Tickets are available at ngv.melbourne.
