Robert Whitaker (photographer) - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

Whitaker was born in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, England in 1939, but described himself as "one part Aussie lad" since his father and his grandfather were both Australian. According to Whitaker, his grandfather built the Princes Bridge in Melbourne. Although he has worked mostly in Britain, Australia and Australian connections have featured throughout career.

He began his photographic career in London in the late 1950s but he moved to Melbourne in 1961, where he began studying at the University of Melbourne and became part of the small but flourishing Melbourne arts scene. According to art historian David Mellor, it was Whitaker's three years in Australia that transformed his work as a photographer. A major influence was undoubtedly his friendship with two of the leading figures of the Melbourne art world, art dealer, patron and restaurateur Georges Mora and his wife, the painter Mirka Mora.

Through the Mora family, he came into contact with other major figures in Australian art and letters including John Reed and Sunday Reed, Ian Sime, Charles Blackman and Barbara Blackman, Barrett Reid, Laurence Hope, Arthur Boyd, Sidney Nolan and Joy Hester, as well as his own peer group including Martin Sharp, Richard Neville, Barry Humphries and Germaine Greer. Whitaker photographed many of these people including Georges and Mirka Mora and their three sons, Philippe Mora (a noted film director), William Mora and Tiriel Mora (a prominent Australian actor).

Whitaker was running a freelance penthouse photo studio in Flinders Street, Melbourne when he had his fateful meeting with The Beatles and their manager Brian Epstein, during the group's June 1964 Australasian tour. This came about more or less by accident, when Whitaker accompanied a journalist friend to an interview with Epstein for an article for the Melbourne Jewish News. Whitaker's picture was published with the article, which led to his introduction to Epstein and his first shots of the Beatles—pictures of Paul McCartney and George Harrison each holding up boomerangs presented to them by Australian fans.

"I photographed Epstein, saw he was a bit of a peacock and a cavalier, and put peacock feathers around his head in photographic relief. He was knocked out when he saw the picture. After that, he saw an exhibition of collages I had at the Museum of Modern Art and immediately offered me the position of staff photographer at NEMS, photographing all his artists. I initially turned it down, but after seeing The Beatles perform at Festival Hall I was overwhelmed by all the screaming fans and I decided to accept the offer to return to England ".

Whitaker accepted the job three months later, but before he left he spent one final Sunday at the Aspendale beach house of his friends Georges and Mirka Mora, taking a set of historic pictures which were exhibited for the first time in the Monash Gallery of Art's 2003 exhibition of his work. In one photograph, "Aspendale Beach", the Mora family - Georges, Mirka and their sons Philippe, William and Tiriel - are pictured in slouched, single file on the beach with Martin Sharp and architect Peter Burns. In another photograph, "Goodbye Bob", the same group sits holding a sign which reads: "GOD bless thee and keep thee … ASPENDALE 1964".