Born: 1927 - The Netherlands, Utrecht Died: Gender: Male Active: Australia
Richard was born in Utrecht in the Netherlands in 1927. In 1951, when he was 24, he moved to Perth, Australia with the intention of arriving in Sydney. But he decided to stayed in Fremantle, where he worked as a painting contractor. He bought his first camera in 1955 when he was 28 for a trip back to Holland, which opened his eyes to the world of photography. When he got back to Australia, he joined several camera clubs to improve his skills and broaden his techniques. In 1961 he felt that he had enough experience to enter a range of his photographs in the Craven, a national photographic competition, which was the first competition he entered. He won first and third prizes. Several years later he became a professional landscape photographer. He became well known for his aerial landscape photographs, which allowed him to introduce a more artistic approach to his work. Amazed by the vastness of Australia and how the terrain went on endlessly he tried to portray it in some of his images. He was also intrigued by the flatness of Western Australia and was able to produce some wonderful imagery in his aerial photographs.
He has won many professional photography awards including the Australian Industrial Category Winner and the Australian Professional Photographer of the year both in 1982, the Australian Landscape Category winner in 1984, the West Australian Landscape Category winner in 1986, 1988 and again in 1990. In 1991 he received the honor of been accepted into the Australian Institute of Professional Photography and he was granted an Honorary Life Member in 1998. He has published several books including "Australia‘s West" and "Design By Nature". Some of his more famous of his books are "Australia‘s Flying Doctors" and "Wool, The Australia Story". But the most famous of them all is "Down To Earth" which has sold in excess of 12,000 copies since it was first published in 1995.
His photographs are in many private and public collections in Australia and America. His collections are shown in such notable institutions as the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra and the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth. Throughout his extensive career he has held many exhibitions and he was recently named a States Living Treasure for Western Australia.
[Contributed by Matthew Tysoe - magtysoe@bigpond]
Richard Woldendorp
Portraits
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Genealogy of Richard Woldendorp
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