Artist Lin van Hek
photographed by Gordon De'Lisle
In the 1960s, Australian photographer Gordon De’Lisle did a series of photographic portraits of painter and writer, Lin van Hek, when she was still in her teens. Many of these beautiful photos appeared in his book, Of Woman Love and Beauty (Joey Books, 1970). Others were auctioned, after De’Lisle passed away, by Leonard Joel, in Prahran, Victoria.
Lin’s name has never appeared on any of the photos and this is the first time they have all been collected in one place to celebrate this unique collaboration between two extraordinary artists.
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Gordon De’Lisle was born in Melbourne in 1923 and died in 2002. He was a commercial, industrial and portrait photographer.
De’Lisle’s father died when he was 11 years old and at 13, he quit school to help support his mother and sister. Two years later, he moved to Sydney and became an apprentice journalist and photographer for The Daily Telegraph.
In WWII, at 18, he joined the merchant marine and took part in the evacuation of the Solomon Islands, later becoming a reconnaissance photographer for the RAAF.
In 1958, he was hired as the still photographer for Stanley Kramer’s movie, On the Beach, with Gregory Peck, Fred Astaire and Ava Gardner, filmed in Australia.
In the late 60s, the vice squad of Victoria’s longest serving Premier (1955–1972) Sir Henry Bolte GCMG raided his family home and confiscated his work, believing it to be pornography. This turned him into a lifelong opponent of censorship in art.
Overseas, his nudes were being celebrated, gaining him one of Europe’s highest honours for photography, the Excellence de la Federatione Internationale de l'Art Photographique.
He was awarded the US Camera International Photographic Prize (1958), 1st Prize in the European Salon of Photography (1959), the Kodak Australia High Achievement Award and 1st Prize in the Illford Australia Concern Creative Division (1972).
He was President of the Victorian Salon of Photography, Senior Lecturer in Photography, at the Prahran Institute of Technology and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Photographic Society.
In the early '70s he moved to the Sunshine Coast and established the DeLisle Art Gallery.
Gordon De’Lisle was married to Cynthia Ferguson for 54 years and has a daughter Jennie, two sons, Chris and Rodney (a third son, James, died in 1997), eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
In the frontispiece to Of Woman Love and Beauty, De’Lisle wrote:
"For many years I have been encouraged by my wife to photograph women...The women who live in this book are special to me...I thank with all my heart Beverly, Jacqui, Jasmine, Joan, Judi, Lin, Pat, Susie, Marie and Will." - G.D.
I’d like to express thanks to his daughter, Jennie, who has published many rare details of her father's early life and his son, Chris, who sent us some photos of Lin from the estate.