Alec Murray was born to a well-known South Australian pastoral family that lived on a property named 'Murray Park' (now an Adelaide Suburb). He moved to Sydney in the 1940s where he became a successful portrait photographer, and in 1947 Sydney Ure Smith published 'Alec Murray's Album: Personalities of Australia'.

Murray then moved on to London where he received considerable notoriety as a fashion and portrait photographer through his regular contributions to Country Life, The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, The Sunday Times, Vanity Fair, UK Vogue, Tatler, Queen and the Australian Women's Weekly.

The archive comprehensively represents Murray's style and oeuvre as a fashion and portrait photographer. It contains fashion photography for Galitzine, Pierre Balmain, Dior, Dormieul, Yves St Laurent, Courreges, Givenchy, Lanvin, and other leading European fashion houses, and a substantial group of portraits including Kerry Packer as a child, Sir Robert Menzies, Sir Sidney Nolan and many others. Importantly, Murray also worked as photographer to the Royal family for over a decade - from his coverage of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1952 for Paris Match through to visiting Sandringham in 1970 to photograph Royal family life on New Year's Day.

The archive is a unique record of Alec Murray's commercial and artistic collaborations with writers, editors, friends, artists, actors, directors and designers over several decades.

References:
Susan Owens, Alec Murray obituary, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 July 2002
Christine France, Alec Murray 1917-2002, Art & Australia, Autumn 2004, pp 404-405
Tatlock Miller et al, Alec Murray Album, Personalities of Australia, Ure Smith, Sydney, 1947
Christine France, Donald Friend: Merioola and Friends, http://www.nla.gov.au/events/donaldfriend/papers/cfrance.html Accessed 1 August 2007
Biography, [compiled by Alec and Sue Murray with Christine France and ???/], undated.
Loudon Sainthill Fellowship, http://www.nida.edu.au/THE-LOUDON-SAINTHILL-FELLOWSHIP/default.aspx
Sally O'Neill, Loudon Sainthill, Australian Dictionary of Biography online edition, http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A160195b.htm

Source:

Powerhouse Museum