Photography curator Athol McCredie reflects on a famous photograph discovered in 2020 amongst our huge Spencer Digby / Ronald D. Woolf portrait collection of negatives.
On 9 March 1936 at 2.30pm, Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage called into the studio of Wellington photographer Spencer Digby to have his portrait taken. It was a very short session, squeezed in while travelling from Parliament to Government House, where he was to meet with the Governor-General. His official scheduling diary allocated just 30 minutes for the journey. Taking out travelling time, he must have had barely ten minutes at the studio. But it was enough to create probably the most famous photograph ever taken in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Who was Michael Joseph Savage?
Savage became prime minister in a landslide election victory of late 1935 that established the very first Labour government. The following year, on 25 March, Parliament had its first sitting. To mark the occasion, the popular Weekly News magazine commissioned the portrait of Savage and published it full-page that day.
The photograph shows Savage as a genial figure, and indeed he was often described as everybody’s uncle. He led a massive programme of reform that established Aotearoa New Zealand’s modern welfare state, with ‘cradle to the grave’ care, including things we take for granted today like free medical treatment and superannuation at age 65.
Three Portraits
There were actually three photographs taken in the studio sitting. All feature Savage’s tilted head and kindly smile. It seems that the one below where his shoulders turn more towards the camera was the reject, as it never appears in print.
But another shot, with the background divided into a light tone on the left and darker on the right, has sometimes been used. It illustrates Te Ara and Wikipedia articles on Savage, and was included in a memorial booklet to him after he died in 1940. But this is not quite the iconic portrait.
The Famous Version
It was a plain background version that the Weekly News published in 1936. And when Savage died of cancer at the height of his popularity in March 1940 the magazine ran it again as part of a special tribute feature. This time it splashed out with two-colour printing, running a brown ink everywhere except for his eyes and hair.
It is often said that many a Labour supporter had a portrait of Savage on their wall in this period. It is most likely that this was a framed cut-out page of one of the two Weekly News reproductions. This would have been a far cheaper and more convenient option than purchasing a print off the negative from the Spencer Digby studio – though possibly the Weekly News supplied cheaper copy prints for customers.
However, only the 1940 magazine page had the two-colour toning, as this was created at the half-tone plate preparation stage. And surviving framed images are usually this version. We have an example (below), and former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had one sitting on her office shelf as inspiration.
Which One Was Best?
To present-day eyes, the divided background version looks more stylish, so it is not surprising to see it used today. But perhaps the background was seen as a distraction at the time. The expression on the face is almost identical in the two shots, despite the time it would have taken to rearrange the lighting. The only other difference is more light shining on the face at the back left to separate the head from the darker background in the famous version.
As for which of the three studio shots Savage himself favoured, his passport photo may offer a clue, though possibly a staffer chose it. This again was the plain background version used by the Weekly News.
Which one do you prefer?
