The Texans 1972-73:
Judith MacDougall

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Judith MacDougall, 'Untitled, Houston Texas', 1972

Exhibition

Shot in Texas between 1972 and 1973 and unseen for over fifty years, these photographs by Judith MacDougall capture American popular culture with irony and verve. Using a 35mm Leica, she documented everyday life—from cowhands and diner workers to car enthusiasts. This exhibition offers a rare glimpse into MacDougall’s early work before her acclaimed career in observational documentary film.

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Exhibition artist

Judith MacDougall

Judith MacDougall is a filmmaker and photographer. She is internationally acknowledged as a defining figure in the development of Ethnographic Documentary Film. After graduating from San Francisco Art Institute and UCLA Film School Judith made documentaries in Uganda and the USA. In 1972 Judith resumed her stills photography at the newly established Rice University Media Centre in Houston Texas. Photographer and teacher Geoff Winningham invited numerous contemporary photographers to the Centre, including Garry Winogrand, Eve Sonneman, Lee Friedlander and Danny Lyon. It was within this artistic milieu that MacDougall applied a background in observational cinema to her photographic studies of 1970’s Texas. In the following decades Judith made over 20 ethnographic documentary films, including the prize-winning ‘Turkana Conversations’ trilogy (1972-73), The House-Opening (1977), Photo Wallahs (1991), Diya (2001) and The Art of Regret (2007). She has taught in Australia, Norway, Italy and China. Judith lives in Canberra, Australia.

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