John Cato

John Cato (1926-2011) is one of the most significant figures in Australian fine art photography. In a career spanning over forty years, Cato established an international reputation for his spare and symbolically-charged photographs of the Australian Outback.

Having trained as a photojournalist and commercial photographer, Cato worked for a number of years alongside Louis Athol Shmith in the latter's celebrated and innovative Melbourne studio. At the beginning of the 1970s, however, Cato struck out in a new direction, exploring the possibilities of fine art photography, and the fruitful tension between objective documentation and suggestive illusion.

Inspired by the rugged topography of Australia's desert landscape, Cato began making regular pilgrimages to remote parts of South Australia, where he spent months studying the landscape and composing his stark, compelling images. The spiritual significance assigned to the land in Aboriginal systems of belief greatly influenced his vision. And in a series of ground-breaking photographic essays produced over many years, he presented the land as a source of power and energy, harbouring natural rhythms charged with mythic significance.

Often waiting weeks for the right light to capture perfectly some detail of tree-bark, a shadow on the parched desert earth, or the silhouette of an abandoned waterhole, Cato produced an unrivalled body of photographs - deeply meditative images that can appear almost non-figurative in their enigmatic presentation of familiar forms. Cato has an assured position as one of the fathers of Australian fine art photography. He exhibited extensively during his lifetime, both in Australia and internationally. His work is held in numerous state and national collections, including the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra,and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris.