Laurence Le Guay

He began producing photomontage work of a more Surrealist style around the contemporary theme of the Machine Age and incorporating the heroic nude, most significant being The Progenitors (1938).

[5][6][7] Consequently, in November 1938 he was invited by Max Dupain and Olive Cotton to join them in forming The Contemporary Camera Groupe with others including Douglas Annand, Harold Cazneaux, Damien Parer, Cecil Bostock and Russell Roberts.

[25] Le Guay founded Contemporary Photography, the first Australian photographic magazine not published by a photo supply firm,[14] the first issue of which appeared in December 1946.

[10] Through it he promoted modernism, abstraction and documentary approaches as an antidote to the Pictorialist style which still predominated in Australia,[26] and which he began to react against during his membership (1940–1953) of the increasingly conservative Sydney Camera Circle.

Born in London, Mist trained and worked in the UK, so augmented his partners' acquired European élan, and further enlivened the burgeoning local industry.