Christmas past gloriously hand-coloured

Mon 2 Dec 2024

During December 1978, Ruth Maddison and her partner Bob Daly spent three weeks at his parents’ house at Mermaid Beach, on Queensland’s Gold Coast. Maddison documented their holiday and the resulting series Christmas holiday with Bob’s family, Queensland (illustrated) formed her first solo exhibition.

From a Russian–Jewish background, Maddison grew up in an extended family, which she says explains her obsessive exploration of Australian popular culture. The artist was one of the foremost exponents of hand-coloured photographs in Australia in the 1970s and early ’80s. This series exemplifies a consciously intimate approach to documentary photography that emerged around this time.