Vale Angus O’Callaghan

22 July 1922 – 20th December 2022

It is with great sadness and very heavy hearts that we announce the death of Angus O’Callaghan. Angus passed away on 20th December after a brief illness in the wake of surgery a few days earlier. He was otherwise well, though increasingly frail, until shortly before his death. He had recently reached the milestone of 100 and we often joked that he was “100 years young”, however ageing eventually caught up with him. Both Jeff and I were very proud to represent Angus but, he was first and foremost a friend, and we will miss him greatly. We were fortunate to have been able to spend so much quality time with him over the past five years and to have received clear direction from him as to how he wanted his work to be presented and his legacy to live on. Angus remained excited about photography until the very end.

We last saw Angus on 6th December, when we took him to the Thornbury Picture House to meet with Gus Berger, a documentary filmmaker who featured Angus’s photographs in his recent film The Lost City of Melbourne. Gus was keen to meet with Angus and assisted us in recording an interview with Angus about his life and work. Despite the fact that mobility was increasingly difficult for Angus, he revelled in these outings and relished every opportunity of talking about his work and meeting new people. As we were leaving the Thornbury Picture House that day, Angus took off down High Street in pursuit of a young street photographer, whom he had noticed carrying a vintage Yashika camera almost identical to those Angus himself had used to take his iconic images of Melbourne in the late sixties and early seventies. The two struck up an instant rapport and it was magical to catch what turned out to be a final glimpse of Angus in his element, talking enthusiastically about the thing he loved most.

I will remember Angus for two things, his photography and his humanity. He taught me a lot and I am forever grateful for the chance encounter of meeting he and his wife Lynette at his exhibition opening in Kyneton in 2017. From there we formed a friendship and professional working relationship, with Jeff later joining to assist with the production side of the works once Angus was no longer able to manage this on his own.

Our sympathies and wishes go to Angus’s wife Lynette, his daughters, Danae and Zelia, and to all those who knew and loved Angus as we did. He will be greatly missed. Please note, the website is temporarily closed for sales and orders while we re-align our operations in line with the wishes of his Estate. to all individual enquiries as well as notify widely as to progress with this website. Angus has left behind a vast collection of negatives, not only from his most famous known works of Melbourne’s changing cityscape from 1968 – 1971, but from other places, themes and periods of his life, that we look forward to exploring and sharing these in future.

Genevieve Wearne and Jeff Katz