James Austin (photographer)
| James Austin | |
|---|---|
Photograph by Pauline Austin
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| Born |
4 June 1940 Melbourne, Australia |
| Residence | France |
| Alma mater | Lycée Lakanal, Paris; Manchester Grammar School; Jesus College, Cambridge; Courtauld Institute, |
| Occupation | Fine-art and architectural photographer |
| Spouse(s) | Pauline Jeannette (née Aten) |
James Austin (born 4 June 1940) is an Australian fine-art and architectural photographer.
James Lucien Ashurst Austin was born in Melbourne, Australia, the eldest son of Lloyd James Austin (1915–1994) and of Jeanne-Françoise (née Guérin). He is the older brother of the late Colin Austin (1941–2010), the scholar of ancient Greek. After studying architecture and fine art at Jesus College, Cambridge, he continued his education at the Courtauld Institute, London.
He then travelled widely in France and Italy as a freelance photographer building up a library of photographs now in use worldwide in art history archives and numerous publications. Among his early clients were the Bollingen Foundation in New York and Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, for whom he provided photographs for twenty volumes of the Buildings of England series. He was Ben Nicholson’s personal photographer for the last ten years of the painter’s life.
He went back to work at the Courtauld Institute for twelve years, travelling extensively around Europe to photograph historic architecture and sculpture for the Conway Library at the Courtauld. On his retirement he transferred his collection of negatives of architectural and sculptural subjects to the Conway Library.
He returned to freelance work in 1985, when he was commissioned to take all the photographs for the catalogue of the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection. His career broadened to encompass the photography of fine art. He worked for the National Trust, English Heritage, the Crafts Council, the Tate Gallery, Kettle's Yard in Cambridge and numerous other institutions, architects, artists, craftsmen and collectors. He continued working for the Sainsbury collection – on several exhibition catalogues and photographing new acquisitions – right up to his retirement in April 2004, keeping a studio and darkroom at Wysing Arts Centre from 1997 until then.
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