From Australia’s Jewish past: Izzy Orloff – Famous Fremantle photographer

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He was born Abraham in Ukraine on 21 March 1891, the youngest of nine children of Rafael Orloff, draper, and his wife Rachel.

Issy Orloff

He was educated at Russian and Hebrew schools.  With the prospect of conscription into the Russian army, the family left when Izzy was 12, setting off to Palestine, where Izzy learnt to be a carriage builder.  On 13 January 1912, he sailed to Fremantle, where his brother had already settled.  His first job was as a carriage builder, building coaches and sulkies, as well as a pedlar, and then he moved on to canvassing for photographic enlargements.

In July 1914, Izzy was naturalised, and between 1917 and 1919 he worked in the local Censorship Office of the Australian Military Forces, translating letters from Russian, Yiddish and German.  On 19 July 1919, countries across the British Empire celebrated Peace Day and Peace Night, marking the end of the First World War. In Perth, the occasion was celebrated with illuminations. City buildings lit up, decorated in bright lights, a sign of optimism to break the end of five long years of ‘the war to end all wars’.  Izzy captured the event and the crowds flocking the streets. 1919 was not only a big year for the world; it was an eventful year for Izzy. The following month he travelled to Melbourne on the newly built trans-Australia railway, taking photographs along the way.

After the war, he headed off to Paris on the first ship out of Fremantle, where his sister Chana was becoming a famous sculptor. His sisters Chana’s home in Paris was described as an ‘Israeli colony of artists’, a hub for creatives of the Parisian Avant-Garde. Izzy was exposed to avant-garde art through his sister Chana’s associations with modernists, including Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall and Max Jacobs. Artists of the Parisian ‘avant garde’  experimented with modernist art and Cubist, Surrealist and Expressionist techniques. There he trained as a photographer and received his certificate of achievement from the French Photographic Society. He was employed at the workshops of Editions Photographiques Felix and photographed prominent people such as the ballerina Anna Pavlova, Australian War graves in France and, whilst visiting family in Palestine, took pictures of the Arab riots at Jaffa in May 1921.  He then returned to North Fremantle to start a lifetime of documenting the lives and events of West Australians. They said about him: “He was never without a camera.”

Photography was getting to be quite a business in the 1920s, and Izzy was one of a group of Fremantle freelance photographers, regularly selling his photos to the Sunday Times in competition with the Western Mail. He loved action, including dances in the hills and yachting on the river, and he was a professional skater down at South Beach, which was quite the place in the 20s and 30s.   Izzy started work at Dease Studios in Barrack Street Perth, and in 1922 he set up his own business – La Tosca Studios in North Fremantleworked at Dease Studios in Barrack Street; he also developed films for customers. In 1922 he set up his own business, La Tosca Studios, at North Fremantle.  He specialised in portraits and group photographs, supplied passport and identification pictures, and took and sold candid shots at dance halls.   He became well-known for his streetscapes, photographed from tall buildings with a big 5 x 4 inch Graphlex camera that captured the panorama.  Once 35mm colour transparencies came into existence in the 1930s, he adopted this format. He continued to work as a professional photographer at Fremantle until the 1960s, but his photos live on in many collections all over Western Australia.

Izzy was good-looking, nearly 183 cm tall and slim, with black hair and an aquiline nose. From 1925 he became active in the Perth branch of the Australian Jewish Welfare Society, which had been established in 1937.  He often holidayed in Israel once, where he supported the Jewish National Fund.  Although orthodox, he was not strict.  He was especially busy with migrant welfare, meeting every migrant ship and helping where he could with monetary assistance and advice. He was an official translator for the Customs Department – speaking seven languages – and, of course, photographer when needed. After the war, he was mainly involved with helping Jewish refugees, but also helped Germans, Italians and Poles, because he knew their language.  In 1956 he was appointed a Justice of the Peace.  His Jewish and non-Jewish community work was important to him, and as a Freemason at the No. 2 Lodge in Fremantle, he established the Caledonian Lodge and was president and life member of the West Coast Angling Club.  He was quite the extrovert, loved to dance, roller-skate, swim, sail and play tennis, and he was a champion chess player. He retired from photography in the 1960s, but his photos live on in many collections all over Western Australia.

At the Bourke Street Synagogue in Melbourne on 20 August 1929, Izzy married Minnie Rose, a Polish-born draper.  They had no children.   Izzy passed away on 2 June 1981 in Perth and was buried in Karrakatta Cemetery.  The State Library of Western Australia holds a collection of his images and negatives.  The Izzy Orloff collection, held at the State Library, comprises over 1,500 photographs. The collection is a small but important fraction of the pictures he captured throughout his career.  As a photographer, Izzy was prolific and talented. As an individual, he was a loved Fremantle personality who was interested in the welfare of others.

The AJHS acknowledges the following references in the preparation of this story:-NC

State Library of Western Australia; Australian Dictionary of Biography – Chris Jeffery; National Library of Australia; The West Australian

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