Bill Henson, Mnemosyne: Photographic Works 1974-2004

Sometimes, but very rarely these days, one can announce a real discovery in contemporary photography — a book that will emphatically place its author on the international map on the same level as such giants of photography as Robert Frank and Nan Goldin. After the international success of Lux et Nox Scalo is proud and excited to announce the definitive mid-life retrospective book on Australian artist Bill Henson. The book combines all groups of work that Henson has created up to the present: from his early Ballet pictures (1974), to his body and nude portraits (1977–1986), from his photographs of street-crowds (1979–1982) to his Baroque Triptychs (1983–84), from his fantastic combinations of pictures taken in the Australian Suburbs and Egypt (1985/86) to his Los Angeles and New York nightscapes (1987–88), from his famous cut-out collages shown at the centenary Venice Biennale in 1995, to the portraits of adolescents and his magical color compositions for the Paris Opera (1990/91), and, most recently, a haunting selection of his images of children adrift in the wilderness of night (1997-2004), many of these appearing for the first time. Bill Henson is a continent in photography to be discovered. This book will be one of Scalo’s major contributions to the understanding of contemporary photography. Published on the occasion of the artist’s retrospective at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, opening January 2005 and touring to the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne in April.

Essays by Judy Annear, Jennie Boddington, Edmund Capon, Dennis Cooper, Peter Craven, Isobel Crombie, John Forbes, Michael Heyward, Alwynne Mackie, David Malouf, Bernice Murphy, Peter Schjeldahl, and an interview with Bill Henson by Sebastian Smee.