William Yang collection of negatives and photographs

ON 742
PXA 7894

fonds

1969-1979

Graphic Materials, Photographs

9670947

20,450 negatives
569 photographic prints
94 contact sheets

William Yang is an Australian photographer known in particular for his documentation of the Sydney LGBTIQ+ community from the beginnings of the gay liberation movement in the early 1970s, through to the inauguration of the Sydney Mardi Gras in 1978, and before the AIDS crisis struck in the 1980s.

Born in Mareeba, North Queensland in 1943, he relocated to Sydney in 1969. After working as a playwright with an experimental theatre company in the early to mid-1970s, Yang started taking photographs of his friends, and the society leaders and celebrities he saw at openings and parties. Yang’s connections to the theatre and the creative arts produced landmark portraits of sitters such as artists Martin Sharp and Brett Whiteley; designers Linda Jackson and Jenny Kee; theatre director Jim Sharman; and their friends and collaborators. From 1974, Yang began selling his images to magazines, and from the 1990s Yang began augmenting his most iconic images with handwritten scripts.

Yang's first exhibition, Sydneyphiles, at the Australian Centre for Photography in 1977, established Yang (then Willy Young) as the preeminent freelance photographer and social documenter of the period. It is also acknowledged to be the first Australian exhibition to publicly display images reflecting Sydney's emerging gay scene, its personalities and lifestyle.

Yang's work has been included in many significant group exhibitions such as World without end (AGNSW, 2000); Don't leave me this way: art in the age of AIDS (NGA, 1994); Life Lines (QAGOMA, 2009); On the edge: Australian photographers of the 1970s (San Diego Museum of Art, 1998); Sydney Photographed (MCA, 1994); and From Bondi to Uluru (Higashikawa Arts Centre, Hokkaido, 1993). A retrospective of his photographs, Diaries, was held at the State Library of New South Wales in 1998. In 2001 the National Portrait Gallery mounted the exhibition William Yang: Australian Chinese which then toured widely in Australia. Yang has produced books including Patrick White: The late years (1995), Sadness (1996), Friends of Dorothy (1997) and China (2008). His works are held in major state galleries, the National Gallery of Australia and the National Portrait Gallery, for which Yang created the commissioned work My Generation in 2008. In 2021 Queensland Art Gallery held the major survey exhibition William Yang: Seeing and Being Seen, and published a book of the same name.

References:
Library acquisition file
National Portrait Gallery, William Yang b. 1943, https://www.portrait.gov.au/people/william-yang-1943

William Yang collection of negatives and photographs from the late 1960s to the late 1970s. Includes his early work with theatre companies, photographs of his friends, parties, fashion shows, and portfolios of actors and performers. The collection contains photographs with a particular focus on the LGBTQI+ community, from the emergence of the gay liberation movement in the early-mid 70s, through to the inauguration of the Sydney Mardi Gras in 1978. Also contains some negatives of photographs chosen for his Sydneyphiles exhibition at the Australian Centre for Photography in 1977.

SERIES 01
William Yang early negatives and photographs, 1969-1972

SERIES 02
William Yang early negatives and photographs, approximately 1972

SERIES 03
William Yang regional negatives and photographs, 1973

SERIES 04
William Yang pre-freelance negatives: Portfolios, 1975-1976

SERIES 05
William Yang pre-freelance negatives: Friends and miscellaneous, 1972-1976

SERIES 06
William Yang pre-freelance negatives: Events, 1972-1976

SERIES 07
William Yang negatives: Interplay and The Dreamers, 1975

SERIES 08
William Yang negatives: Antiques and technical, 1975-1977

SERIES 09
William Yang negatives: Duchess of Malfi, 1976

SERIES 10
William Yang negatives: Events, 1975-1977

SERIES 11
William Yang negatives: Events continued, 1975-1977

SERIES 12
William Yang negatives: Friends and miscellaneous, 1975-1977

SERIES 13
William Yang negatives: Parties, 1975-1977

SERIES 14
William Yang negatives: Plays, 1975-1977

SERIES 15
William Yang negatives: Portfolios, 1975-1977

SERIES 16
William Yang negatives: The boys, 1975-1977

SERIES 17
William Yang colour negatives and Sydneyphiles slides, 1975-1977

SERIES 18
William Yang after freelance negatives: Randwick and miscellaneous, 1976-1977

SERIES 19
William Yang after freelance negatives: Randwick Parties and Events, 1977

SERIES 20
William Yang after freelance negatives: Events, 1977

SERIES 21
William Yang after freelance negatives: Parties, 1977

SERIES 22
William Yang after freelance negatives: Miscellaneous, 1977-1978

SERIES 23
William Yang after freelance negatives: Portfolios, 1977-1978

SERIES 24
William Yang after freelance negatives: Events, 1978

SERIES 25
William Yang after freelance negatives: Parties, 1978

SERIES 26
William Yang negatives: Sydney, October-November 1979

SERIES 27
William Yang negatives: Sydney, End of 1979

SERIES 28
William Yang contact sheets and prints

The negatives and photographs in this collection are arranged chronologically where possible. William Yang's titles and descriptions have been used as the basis for description. See Series level records for further detail.

Partly restricted: Applies to Series 5, ON 742, FILE 094

This material is held in cold storage and requires 3 working days notice to retrieve. Please submit your request through Ask a Librarian - Applies to negatives at ON 742
Access via appointment - Applies to digitised proof sheets. Onsite access by appointment only on the Digital Collections Access Computer in the Special Collections reading room.

In copyright:
Copyright holder:: William Yang
Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, and Courtesy William Yang

Series titles have been devised by cataloguer based on information contained on folders annotated by William Yang

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are kindly advised that this collection includes images and names of people who have passed.
Colour slides are housed with negatives at ON 742.

Dates based on information supplied by William Yang