David Potts (1926-2012) was a photographer with a career spanning more than fifty years. In the late 1940s he contributed to Laurence le Guay's magazine Contemporary Photography and worked in Russell Roberts's and le Guay's studios in Sydney, often accompanying David Moore on weekend excursions to document the Sydney scene. In 1950 he left Australia to work as a photojournalist in London. In a review of his 2000 exhibition Dawn, Dusk and other Abstracts, Robert McFarlane described Potts as one of Australia's most distinguished photographers. He wrote that 'It is a tribute to Potts's vision that he can express the beauty found in [incongruous] subjects . . . Potts is clearly at the age of contemplation, and what remarkable images he has found to meditate upon.'
Purchased 2001
David Potts (age 27 in 1953)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
Over the last five years the National Portrait Gallery has developed a collection of portrait photographs that reflects both the strength and diversity of Australian achievement as well as the talents of our photographers.
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