Anton BRUEHL
Australia 1900 – United States of America 1982
United States from 1919

Tomando el sol, San Juan Teotihuacan [Taking the sun, San Juan Teotihuacan] 1932
gelatin silver photograph
image 24.6 (h) x 19.7 (w) cm
Gift of American Friends of the National Gallery of Australia, Inc., New York, NY, USA, made possible with the generous support of Anton Bruehl Jr, 2006.
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
NGA 2006.82

Travelling without his beloved spotlights, Bruehl worked with natural light in Mexico. This is the first time he encountered a strong high altitude light since leaving Australia over a decade earlier. Light is in many ways the star performer in the portfolio. Bruehl chose these two peons sitting in the sun on the edge of a pyramid when asked to contribute to the publication, My best photograph and why in 1937. Of them, he wrote: ‘They interested me in many ways: the hopelessness and poverty of their life – their utter indifference to time – and their stoicism’